“Charities across the country have been eyeing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which provides billions of dollars to projects in areas like the arts, child care, health, homelessness, special education, and job training — a seeming oasis in a desert of economic hard times. … Others, however, worry that organizations are building up false hope, saying the stimulus money will bypass most of them and will not resolve the economic distress afflicting the nonprofit world as a whole.”