Generosity Inc.

The bankers of PNC are moving aggressively into the local market, bringing with them a reputation for strong community involvement. This year, PNC awarded $150,000 to three Head Start operators-- Campagna Center in Alexandria, United Planning Organization in the District and Community Action Agency in Montgomery County -- to create demonstration projects in language development, scientific thinking and early literacy mentoring.

Acumen Solutions of Vienna got 1,450 runners out this month for the 10K Jingle Bell Run out at Hains Point to benefit the SEED Foundation, which runs an amazingly successful charter boarding school that begins in the seventh grade and so far has gotten all of its graduates into college.

Another charter member of the charter school movement is the Sallie Mae Foundation, which over the past two years has contributed $27 million toward a facilities fund known as Building Hope. The fund helped finance the Cesar Chavez Parkside Facility, which opened last month in Southeast Washington.

There's no column long enough to describe all the ways companies and their employees donate invaluable services to nonprofits that could not otherwise afford them. But any list this year would include the legal work Blake Biles and his colleagues at Arnold & Porter do for homeless women; the 4,000 hours put in by lawyers at Hogan & Hartson to research and write a report on AIDS in the District; the improvements at Eastern Middle School in Silver Spring by Allentuck Landscaping; and the marketing done by Sage Communications for the first annual Duke Ellington Jazz Festival.

Building contractors have also discovered they can work miracles by working together. A group too numerous to mention, under the direction of Michael Tabassi of Tadjer-Cohen-Edelson Associates, renovated the Gospel Rescue Ministries in the District. And HomeAid Northern Virginia, the charitable arm of the building industry association there, teamed up with Richmond American Homes to double the bed capacity at The Haven, the only homeless shelter in Fauquier County.

And at a time corporate support of the arts has begun to wane, Lockheed Martin committed $1.5 million to support special exhibits at the Phillips Collection while KSI, the big real estate developer, provided $25,000 this year to Class Acts Arts, which brings the arts into low-income schools in Rockville and Silver Spring.

One-off contributions are nice, but many nonprofits say they live and die on multifaceted relationships with key corporate sponsors. Those include the Freeman Group's deep involvement with Family & Child Services of Washington, Giant Food's 25-year relationship with the Capital Area Food Bank, General Dynamics' support for So Others May Eat and the decade-long tie between Altria and Food & Friends, which delivers meals at home to those with life-challenging illnesses.

Ronald D. Paul Cos. is a stalwart in supporting the National Kidney Foundation while Centex Construction in Fairfax has managed everything from bowling outings to winter clothing drives for the children at the Center for Multicultural Human Services of Falls Church. In Northern Virginia, Habitat for Humanity credits First Horizon Home Loans and its employees with going "above and beyond" this year by sponsoring a Black Tie and Tool Belt gala, which raised $25,000. SAIC's involvement with the USO this year has ranged from sponsoring military family nights at Nationals games to providing financial support to injured troops and their families.

In terms of longevity, however, nothing beats the century-long special relationship between the Little Sisters of the Poor, which serves the elderly indigent of the District from its home on H Street NW, and its neighbor, Ottenberg's bakery, which this year provided about $11,000 in baked goods.

And then there are these relatively newfangled approaches to business philanthropy:

CitiMortgage raised funds for Big Brothers and Big Sisters, and EDS for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, by sponsoring a "casual dress day" that allows contributors to show up for work in jeans and flip-flops. Marriott now has a "linen bank" in which its replaced bedsheets and towels go to nonprofits like House of Ruth and the Armed Forces Retirement Home. In Arlington, the management of Post Pentagon Row capitalized on the popularity of the "Bachelor" and "Bachelorette" TV shows by auctioning off some of the most eligible local singles, raising $23,000 for cancer research.

But perhaps the most impressive innovation comes from Leah Gansler and CharityWorks, which focuses the financial support from dozens of participating companies on a single nonprofit each year in a way that transforms it, along with the lives of the children and families it serves. In just six years, CharityWorks has distributed more than $4.5 million to various initiatives, among them sending 24 local foster children to college, expanding literacy programs for 3,600 elementary school children, financing construction of a second campus for the Maya Angelou charter school and launching after-school and summer programs in some of the poorest areas of the District.

To corporate philanthropists I've overlooked, please accept my apologies, along with an invitation to drop me an e-mail around Thanksgiving time next year.

Happy holidays.

Steven Pearlstein can be reached atpearlsteins@washpost.com.