Asian Philanthropy Forum

A New Status for APPC and a Void in the Philanthropic Research Sector in Asia

Earlier this month, Give2Asia announced the merger of APPC (Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium) and Give2Asia. Barnett Baron, CEO of Give2Asia wrote in a blog piece:

The merger of APPC and Give2Asia creates a new resource for donors in Asia and the US. APPC’s research and conference reports have been digitized and are available for free download at Give2Asia’s new website, www.asianphilanthropy.org. 

For some folks, this is exciting as the new website will become the "hub" of all things philanthropy-related in Asia. However, the usefulness of the APPC research is questionable since much of the information is now outdated. Since the conference on diaspora philanthropy in Hanoi in 2008, APPC has been inactive. This is a shame because APPC was the one and only philanthropic research organization in Asia that was independently organized (and not affiliated with a university or western entity).

The quiet demise of APPC's leadership status as the preferred philanthropic research engine sheds some light on the lack of interest in funding this type of work. Very few donors want to support philanthropic research - even though they realize that it also helps build non-profit capacity and the field of philanthropy (many organizations use this research to be more effective when working with donors or in developing their programs). Afterall, it is difficult for individual donors to make a direct correlation between philanthropic research and providing immediate assistance to beneficiaries on the ground.

In the past several months, wealth management firms have partnered with for-profit and academic institutions to release philanthropy in Asia reports. While these reports are helpful and provide greater insight to the current situation in Asia, the underlying purpose of the sponsors is to promote their financial services to high-net worth clients.

We still lack a group that is represented by charitable and social organizations in Asia that is focused on information exchange and research. Who is convening nonprofit practioners all over Asia to build the sector? Who is funding research that examines how local donors in Asia give? Who is reporting on new legal issues and changes? As far as I know, no one in Asia. Who do you think will step up?

Enabling Indian Diaspora Philanthropy

Give2Asia released a new report that looks at the challenges and trends of diaspora donors giving to India. Here are some of the highlights from the report, Enabling Indian Diaspora Philanthropy:

* Nearly 2.7 million people of Indian origin reside in the US, making it the third largest Asian American population. 

* Over $2.3 billion was received by some 12,400 non- governmental organizations in India from overseas sources in 2008-09, an increase of nearly 12% over the previous year. Of this, nearly $740 million came from the United States alone, making it the single largest contributor. Diaspora remittances to India are the highest in the world at an estimated $49.3 billion in 2009.

* The Indian government has also recognized the financial and intellectual power of its diaspora, and has been actively seeking to encourage its business and philanthropic investments.

* There are challenges to giving to India though. They include: (1) lack of information about good organizations; (2) lack of trust in intermediaries and grantees; (3) India has a complicated legal process for non-profits wishing to accept foreign funds; and (4) and many of the funds to India are concentrated in certain parts of the country.

* Give2Asia has seen some recent trends in private giving: (1) public-private partnerships in India are increasing, an example is the creation of the Public Health Foundation of India; (2) donors are focusing on localized high-impact philanthropy; (3) donors are not only giving annually but they are making endowment gifts; and (4) social investments are on the rise.

To read the full report, you can download it here. 

Asian Philanthropy News Digest 01/28/2011

Taipei Approves Chinese Philanthropists' Charity Visit. Chen Guangbiao, along with 47 Chinese businessmen, will be visiting Taiwan and handing out cash to the needy. While philanthropists support charitable organizations or entities providing services to groups in need, the Chinese businessmen decided he would effectuate his philanthropy by personally handing out cash to each poor person or low income family (US$333 or 10,000 Taiwan dollars each for a total of US$16 million). The gesture is not without its critics. The controversy is mainly focused on respect and discretion to the poor and changes the traditional anonymous, low-key way of giving money. Is this the new trend? Does this have more impact?

The Charity Council in Singapore has released the Charity Governance Report 2011.  The report highlights the state of governance in the charity sector, the capability building initiatives available, as well as profiles good governance practices by charities.  The 2011 report notes that more charities have taken the responsibility to enhance their governance and management capabilities.  The improvement in the checklist scores for all sectors suggests that charities are adopting more of the Code guidelines.  In addition, since 2007, more than 700 charities have tapped on the VWOs-Charities Capability Fund (VCF) for training, consultancy, info-communications technology and shared services grants.

Investing in China's Future One Student at a Time. Calvin Chin, founder of Qifang, is featured on Huffington Post this week. Calvin founded Qifang in 2007 to help students complete their higher education in China. The site connects university students who need money with investors in the form of micro-loans. The international community has embraced the social business but Calvin has received resistance to the model in China because "Chinese investors shy away from new ideas and young companies."

 

U.S. Foundations Continue to Provide International Funding

Even in a tough economy, U.S foundations continue to support many charitable programs overseas. According to a recently released report, International Grantmaking Update: A Snapshot of U.S. Foundation Trends, international giving by U.S. foundations in 2009 declined from the record level posted in 2008 but at a slower rate than the decline in domestic giving. The  estimated 4% decline, from a record of $7 billion in 2008 to $6.7 billion was largely a result of the economic downturn.

The study includes estimates of overall giving by private and community foundations through 2009 and examined funding patterns based on all of the grants of $10,000 or more; with a sample of 1,490 larger U.S. foundations in 2008.

Interesting findings from the study:

* The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded over $2.7 billion, accounting for more than two out of five international dollars in the 2008 grant sample.

* In the 2008 sample, 848 out of 1,490 funders awarded at least one international grant.

* Health captured the largest share (39%) of international support in 2008, followed by international development (21%) and the environment (17%).

* U.S. based international programs received appoximately two-thirds of international grant dollars awarded by sampled foundations, while overseas recipients received the roughly one-third of remaining dollars.

Outlook for International Funding

I think international giving will continue to grow as donors become more strategic about their giving and as their knowledge about global issues and challenges increases. Three new trends seem to be emerging: 

1. As corporations expand their global presence, they will support organizations or projects in locations where they do business and/or where their employees are based. If we follow where corporations have the largest market growth, philanthropic support to Asian groups should increase in the future.

2. Community foundations are also expanding their reach to newer and younger donors.  Many of them are interested in global issues and thus, when they set up donor-advised funds, they are demanding that they can support projects overseas, whether through the use of an intermediary or directly to the overseas group. Another interesting trend is that many community foundations, like the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, ranked as the largest international funders among community foundations giving overseas, with giving of $45.7 million, manage corporate giving programs that have a global focus.

3. According to the study, foundations established since 1995 (200 of them) accounted for almost 10% of total international grantmaking. Of these, 65 gave at least $1 million for international programs. This is an interesting trend and there may be several explanations, including that donors are seeing a larger impact (or return) on overseas projects. Another explanation may be that these newer donors have an immigrant background and are interested in supporting projects in countries where they came from.

Asian Philanthropy News Digest 01/20/2011

* Heyman Center and the School of Continuing and Professional Studies at NYU is hosting the conference, Leadership Summit on Global Philanthropy, Feb 17-19th. Participants will share their novel approaches to philanthropy, comparing the American model with a variety of new and emerging public-private sector alternatives in the U.S. and abroad.

* The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University will be hosting a convening on Civil Society and Nonprofits in China on January 21-23, 2011 in Cambridge, MA. The conference convenes leading China studies scholars from the U.S. to explore recent research, key issues in the field, and a possible future teaching and research agenda. Topics include Civil Society Groups in Contemporary China, Historical Antecedents: Ming, Qing and the Republic Era, and Regulation of Nonprofits and Policy Evolution.

* It's all philanthropy at OP Jindal inaugural lecture series. Pierre Omidyar delivered the keynote speech address on Next Generation Philanthropy at the OP Jindal Memorial Lecture Series in Mumbai. The lecture series is offered by JSW Foundation and is an annual event introduced by the Jindal Group.

New Resource: China Charity Gifts

China will soon have its first online charity gift catalog! In their newsletter, Doing Good, Social Venture Group announced that they be launching China Charity Gifts (CCG), an online giving platform that allows donors to purchase a "gift" in honor of a friend or family member that benefits a specific need of a Chinese grassroots NGO.

The site will begin with seven Chinese NGOs with requests that range from RMB 30 (US $5) meal for a child with cerebral palsy to a RMB 1,200 (US $180) micro-grant for a farmer in Western China. 

SVG's partnership with Shanghai United Foundation, China's first community foundation, allows donors to legally receive and distribute the gifts to the NGOs represented on the site. SVG is a third-party administrator of the giving platform. The site is expected to launch in February 2011.

China has over 277 million internet users. Will CCG be the start of a new giving trend in China? Will the netizens adopt online giving practices that are popular in the West? Or, will this be another online giving platform in an already saturated field that has yet to be proven to be sustainable? We will let you know as the site launches and as we monitor their giving record.

Asian Philanthropy News Digest 12/24/2010

The Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI) is now accepting applications for the class of 2011. I am a fan of GSBI and have been to their pitches the last three years. The GSBI works with select social entrepreneurs to expand and scale their impact through 4 months of online preparation and an intensive two week in-residence program held in Santa Clara, CA.  This program is funded by a full scholarship, valued at $25,000, provided to all participating organizations.  The GSBI application process takes place on www.socialedge.org and applications are available today.  The interactive application process occurs throughout January, 2011, so start as soon as you can. If you have any questions please contact Sherrill Dale, Program Manager at gsbi2011@scu.edu.

50 Resources for Students Attending Nonprofit Management Schools. Asian Philanthropy Forum was included in this great list of resources for students wishing to learn more about the field.

 

New Resource: Philanthropy in China

Mercy Corps China just launched the Global Philanthropy Information and China Project (GPICP). According to an email from Ms. Yimei Chen, Mercy Corps China Country Director, the purpose of the GPICP is to:

(I)ntroduce global philanthropy information to Chinese foundations and NGOs, and make Chinese information available to external readers.

The objectives will be to help break the isolation of Chinese philanthropy and social development from the world; raise Chinese capacity in strategic and effective philanthropy; and foster international exchanges and cooperation.

GPICP is really an enewsletter with bits and pieces of information about philanthropy in China. The current issue includes the feedback to the Bill Gates and Warren Buffett Pledge and provides summaries of several events in China, including the Second China Private Foundation Forum 2010, the first Jingshi Philanthropy Seminar in Beijing and news reports on trends in philanthropy.

To download the enewsletter, please click this link: Download GPIEN-C1English

Visual Look at the Giving Market

Throughout the whole SOCAP conference, I found it fascinating that so many folks were talking about marketplaces and giving sites. Sure having information all on one platform so donors can easily learn and evaluate the organization is a great idea. Like a retail market, donors can read reviews, find comparable organizations and then make a "purchase" or donate to the organization online. However, the issue is that donors - especially donors that like to write lots of zeros behind a number, want to meet, talk to and engage more with the people and groups they support. They will ask difficult to answer questions, do their due diligence and ask their friends for their thoughts before making large "purchases." Does this take time and resources? Yes, and while it could be more efficient, I think the joy is actually in this work. It is what keeps donors thinking and what keeps them coming back to address the issue.

Giving platforms have its unique space in the philanthropic market. They are great for small gifts and may be very effective for disaster giving. These transactional gifts are small, possibly one time gifts. For small nonprofits, chasing these small gifts takes just as much work as engaging with a large donor. And, large donors want a relationship. To summarize, would individuals buy a book online? Sure. But would they buy a Ferrari online? Probably not.

At the SOCAP conference last week, Liquidnet had some interesting panels on display that tells the story of Markets for Good. It is their attempt to visually showcase some of the challenges and opportunities within the philanthropic ecosystem - the giving markets. Some of the stats were taken from Money for Good. I have summarized the story below but I would encourage you to visit the Markets for Good website to see the rest of the panels. (Click on the panels below to see it in a larger window.)

* The average transaction cost is 5% in financial capital markets, 10% in impact investing markets and 30% in the philanthropy-giving markets.

* In the philanthropy market today, we do not have readily available, reliable and universal information to support it.

* In general, most giving comes from many donors, but goes to relatively few nonprofits.

* The assumption is that if we understand the various motivations driving donors, we can more fully engage them in social investing. 

* While some donors say they care about nonprofit performance, very few actively donate to the highest-performing nonprofits.

* Tomorrow's donors will need to become social investors if they want to ensure that funding goes to the highest-performing nonprofits. 

* With enough demand from donors and sufficient supply of information about nonprofits, we might transform the philanthropic ecosystem into giving markets.

* Tomorrow's giving markets could have an Amazon-like look and feel where a range of information is available to connect buyers and sellers.

Global Philanthropy Loses a Resource

I received an email from the Board of Directors of the Chicago Global Donors Network (CGDN) which brought sad news to the global philanthropic community. After seven years of operations, CGDN will be conducting a major restructuring of the organization and will let their staff go. In addition, CGDN will not be holding their annual conference planned for this fall.

Like many organizations, we are faced with the growing pressures of a decrease in operating support and a reduction in corporate and foundation sponsorships.

CGDN was founded in the 2003 by Marjorie Benton and Adele Simmons, active international philanthropists. Over the years the organization has held numerous events and attracted sizeable audiences. CGDN has over 1,100 individuals, foundations, and corporations in its network. So what will happen to CGDN? 

...our board of directors strongly believes in the continued need for and importance of the services and expertise embodied in CGDN. We are actively pursuing arrangements to align our resources in order to continue delivering the high quality content that donors have come to trust.

In a time when global philanthropy is growing (6.2% increase according to GivingUSA 2009) and demand for information is increasing, it will be a shame to lose CGDN as a resource. I spoke at one of their events in 2008 and I met a great group of colleagues. I think there is a need for a group like this in the field and there are lots of opportunities for CGDN to remake itself. I look forward to seeing CGDN 2.0.