Giving Compass' Take:

• The authors describes how Asian philanthropy is changing, and the next generation of philanthropists are more focused on social enterprise and value investments. 

• What challenges will the next generation face if Asian philanthropy pivots in a new direction?

• Read more about Asia's next generation of philanthropists.

Asian philanthropy is undergoing a profound cultural change triggered by generational differences. These differences have been understudied; one of the few such assessments was conducted by UBS and INSEAD in 2011.

It reached several important conclusions, most notably that the older generations tend to be more cognizant of the importance of giving to their communities; younger generations, on the other hand, tend to be more internationalist in their outlook.

The study also found that the older generations tend to give more to “traditional” sectors such as education and health, whereas younger generations accord greater value to causes relating to the arts and culture, the environment, and civil rights. And, the older generations are often more comfortable with patriarchal models of governance, while next-generation philanthropists tend to prefer collegial or managerial models of governance, and they are much more open to social enterprise and social value investment models.

The newly wealthy in Asia send their children to Western countries to acquire modern business skills that can increase their wealth. While there, they are exposed to new concepts of social responsibility and philanthropy. Even without intending to, second- and third-generation Asian business managers return with a new framework to envision responsibility to the family and the community of stakeholders that the family business engages.

Read the full article about next generation philanthropy in Asia by Brad Glosserman, Fan Li & Yulin Li at Stanford Social Innovation Review