Obama to donate Nobel prize money to charity: White House

"He (Obama) mentioned specifically to me on Friday that the (prize) money would be donated to charity," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters at his daily press briefing.

Gibbs, however, said the US President has not told anybody to what charities the money would go.

"There will be a process to evaluate that, from his perspective. I assume it will be many different charities. But he has not told me or anybody else here the specifics of what those might be," he said.

Obama would himself travel to Oslo to receive the award. The Nobel Committee earlier stunned the world when it announced last Friday that it has decided to award the Peace Prize to Obama.

A humbled Obama, who was himself surprised by this announcement, said the Prize represents not the achievements of one person but the hopes of millions throughout the world of the life and the world that they want to live in -- whether that's a world without nuclear weapons; a world without the spread of weapons of mass destruction; a world with peace in the Middle East; a world that addresses climate change.