Last week, the biggest annual gathering of college fund raisers was held in New York as some of the rockiest business news of the year unfolded. The three-day event, organized by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, was bookended by the federal government's announcement that it would step in to bail out the beleaguered mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke's appearance on Capitol Hill, where he painted a gloomy picture of rising inflation and slowing growth. Despite negative views about the economy, philanthropy insiders seemed to hold an optimistic outlook for the year ahead, based on current growth and having survived past economic downturns. They couched their optimism with caution--things could get worse, and next year's giving could be affected by that, as previous slowdowns have shown--but they were still overwhelmingly positive that campaigns would proceed as planned and donations would continue to grow, possibly with some adjustments in timing.