The Alavi Foundation is a private not-for-profit organization based in the United States.

The Alavi Foundation is the successor organization to the Pahlavi Foundation, a nonprofit group used by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, Shah of Persia , ruled Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979...

 to advance Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

's charitable interests in America. Most of the charities income is from rent collected on the New York Fifth Avenue skyscraper the Piaget Building, which was built in 1978 under the Shah, who was overthrown in 1979.

In November 2009, federal prosecutors in the United States seized its assets. The seized assets include bank accounts; Islamic centers consisting of schools and mosques in New York City, Maryland, California and Houston; more than 100 acre (0.404686 km²) in Virginia; and the Piaget Building, a 36-story glass office tower in New York.

Without rent from the skyscraper, the Alavi Foundation would have almost no way to continue supporting the Islamic centers, which house schools and mosques. The most recent tax records show the foundation earned $4.5 million from rents in 2007.

Legal scholars said they know of only a few cases in U.S. history in which law enforcement authorities have seized a house of worship. Marc Stern, a religious-liberty expert with the American Jewish Congress, called such cases extremely rare.
http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/feds-seize-mosques-tower-iran-111209

The Alavi Foundation:

• Grants money to American universities including Columbia University
  Columbia University
  Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
  
   and Rutgers University
  Rutgers University
  Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
  
  to fund centers for Persian and Middle Eastern studies. Critics claim that these centers employ faculty "sympathetic" to Iran's Islamic republic.
• Encourages universities in North America to offer courses on Persian language, Iranian studies and the Islamic culture with a focus on Shi’ite studies;
• Supports Weekend Persian Schools throughout the United States that link Iranian-Americans with their Persian heritage;
• Supports Islamic centers that are established and used by local Muslim communities throughout the United States;
• Established a book distribution program for those unable to purchase these books on their own;
• Provides funds to support disaster relief projects;
• Provides funds to support Islamic and Persian arts;
• Provides funds supporting scholarly research projects in Iranian and Islamic/Shi’ite studies; and
• Has a student loan program.