Asian philanthropies are increasingly moving away from ‘traditional chequebook giving’ to grantees within family, religious or business circles, and instead moving towards more formalised giving for long-term pressing issues in the region.

That’s according to a new report published by philanthropy consultancy Bridgespan, which has highlighted five best practices by some of Asian philanthropies' biggest funders over the past 25 years that have driven meaningful change. 

It identified foundations having an increased focus on impact ‘not only act with intention and a sense of urgency, but also be more consistent, going deeper or wider – as they desire – to achieve lasting change.’ 

‘For example, the Shiv Nadar Foundation, one of India’s largest institutional philanthropies, has spent the last three decades building primary, secondary, and higher education institutions to ensure that their impact goal of “quality education for all” becomes a reality,’ said report authors Gwendolyn Lim, Xueling Lee, and Pritha Venkatachalam. 

Asian philanthropies' biggest funders have set increasingly ambitious goals. China’s Tencent Foundation, listed as the fourth largest funder in a separate report on the world’s biggest philanthropies by assets, developed an app that allowed users to give directly to nonprofits. Today it is the most used app in China, with over 900 million individual donors giving roughly $4 billion.  

‘All the high-impact philanthropies we researched balanced this ambitious thinking with a realistic approach, setting measurable goals to track progress and adapt strategies over time,’ said the report. 

Asian philanthropies which achieved the highest impact stuck to long term commitments and sustained giving practices. 

‘And in contrast to the common, chronic practice of underfunding non-programmatic costs of nonprofits, high-impact philanthropies resource their giving to cover all of their grantees’ expenses, including overhead and organisational development costs, committing to paying what it takes for nonprofits to sustain their impact,’ Bridgespan added. 

Data driven learning remains ‘woefully inadequate in the social sector, not just in Asia but globally.’

Read the full article about Asian philanthropies by Shafi Musaddique at Alliance Magazine.