Charity: Meet some of top givers in 2021 in the Asia-Pacific region

TOP GIVERS: Here’s some of the notable individual givers in the Asia-Pacific region. The list does not rank the philanthropists, but includes people noted for achieving a new altruistic milestone or for sharing significant amounts from their personal fortunes — as well as their time and attention to their personal causes. Charitable causes include healthcare, education, climate and community service. The select group is based on publicly available data — from listings on Forbes (December 2021 issue), EdelGive Hurun India (2021) and Parhlo, which honours the most charitable people.

AZIM PREMJI: The Wipro founder and chairman was cited for giving an estimated $1.3 billion of his family’s wealth to social causes through the Azim Premji Foundation in 2021 alone. The 76-year-old Indian business tycoon has proven his primacy in the world of charity. The numbers reflect Premji’s works of charity. The nobleman has reportedly donated almost $21 billion in his life, having smashed some records as the philanthropist by donating a little over $7.5 billion dollars to India’s education sector. Premji has also retained top spot on the EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List 2021.

DR SYED ABEEDUL HASAN RIZVI: Dr Rizvi, 83, is a Pakistani philanthropist, renal transplant surgeon and founder of the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT), the largest kidney transplant centre in Pakistan. His success at charity work began with the establishment of a urology ward in the Civil Hospital, Karachi. It was then a small ward with only eight beds. Today he has made it the top urology and transplantation institute of Pakistan. SIUT provides free dialysis and kidney transplant and other related services to the financially unwell people. Unprivileged people from all over Pakistan are welcomed here with a smile. Dr Rizvi is also a recipient of Magsaysay Award, the Nobel of Asia.

SHIV NADAR: Shiv Nadar, 76, is among the Indian business tycoons listed among the top names on the EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List 2021. Nadar, founder of HCL, a $10-billion global enterprise and one of India’s largest software service providers. He established Shiv Nadar Foundation in 1994. This 2021, the foundation has given extensively to education charities, nurturing about 13,000 students (20,852 alumni), including underprivileged but meritorious rural children, disbursing more than $988 million since its inception. The foundation is also a patron of art, by setting up the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (with 2 museums and 6381 artworks and 36 staff). 

MUKESH AMBANI: The 64-year-old industrialist is among top names on the EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List 2021. Mukesh established Reliance Foundation in 2010 as a non-profit, and is now one of India’s largest corporate foundations, led by his wife Nita Ambani, 58. It operates mobile clinics, rural development and nutrition projects, having touched more than 51 million lives over the years in more than 44,700 rural villages and urban locations. The foundation has created 13.1 million cubic meters of water harvesting capacity, trained some 10,000 village volunteers, trained 8,800 unemployed and supported 39 skilling partners across 20 states and 150+ cities in India. On healthcare, Reliance provided 230,000 health consultations though Mobile Medical Units, Static Medical Units and Community Health Centres. It also supports an array of educational programs, including the Reliance Foundation Scholarships in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Sciences.

TESSIE SY-COSON: Tessie Sy-Coson is one of the two Filipinos handpicked by Forbes Asia magazine to join its roster of “Asia’s 2021 Heroes of Philanthropy.” Sy-Coson is the vice chair of SM Investments Corp and the eldest daughter of the late Henry Sy, the Philippines’ father of retail. She spearheads the group’s philanthropy as vice chairman of the foundation, established in 1983. In 2021, the SM group acquired 560,000 doses to inoculate more than 120,000 employees; they also donated 150,000 doses to the government and poor communities. SM Foundation had so far donated over P1.5 billion ($30 million) in vaccines, hospital equipment, and protective gear for healthcare workers, according to Forbes Asia. The magazine also noted that SM Foundation had supported the treatment of 1.2 million underprivileged patients, helped over 8,000 students attend college and technical-vocational institutions, and funded the building of over 100 schools across the country in the past three decades. Being the biggest landlord in the Philippines, the SM group through SM Prime Holdings has also been assisting tenants whose businesses have been disrupted by the pandemic. Based on SM Prime’s 2020 annual report, the property developer waived rentals and other charges amounting to P23.3 billion ($458 million) throughout the duration of the government-imposed community quarantine.

RINA LOPEZ-BAUTISTA: She is the daughter of Lopez group patriarch Oscar Lopez, and runs the educational-technology nonprofit Knowledge Channel Foundation Inc. (KCFI) which she founded in 1999. KCFI’s content is designed to meet the educational standards set by the Philippines’ Department of Education (DepEd) for K-12 students and teachers in the country. The Lopez group of companies and other groups had founded and launched the “Stay at Home, Learn at Home” campaign for students during the COVID-19 lockdowns. In September 2021, KCFI teamed up with the smart parenting site ph.theasianparent.com, reaching a further 500,000 users. KCFI is now reaching 10 million Filipino households, while 7,000 principals, teachers and parents participate in its webinars and online training programs on Facebook, the magazine noted.

MIKE CANNON-BROOKES: Mike Cannon-Brookes, reportedly worth $22.9 billion, is behind the Cannon-Brookes Foundation. The Australian tech billionaire has joined the list of top givers for his efforts to save the planet, including a pledge to give non-profits. The co-founder of Atlassian and wife Annie have pledged to donate and invest $1.5 billion on climate projects by 2030 to combat climate change.

PHILIP AND ROBERT NG: Singapore’s property tycoons, brothers Philip (right) and Robert Ng Chee Siong, are among the top charitable givers in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2020, the Ng brothers made pandemic-related contributions a top priority for their family foundation, having contributed 50 million yuan ($10.2 million) in March to Tsinghua University in Beijing to support COVID-19 research. The brothers are at the helm of Far East Organisation, Singapore's largest private landlord and property developer. The group was founded by their late father Ng Teng Fong, who moved from China to Singapore in 1934 and came to be known as "The King of Orchard Road”. Their Hong Kong arm, Sino Group, is overseen by older sibling Robert and his son Daryl, while Philip oversees the Singapore interests.

SCOTT PARQUHAR: The Australian billionaire and co-founder and co-CEO of the software company Atlassian, has a net worth is estimated at $22.8 billion. Farquhar IS known as an “accidental billionaire” after he and his business partner Mike Cannon-Brookes founded Atlassian. In August 2021, Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar donated $2 million to artist Ben Quilty’s campaign to help Afghan refugees through the UNHCR. Farquhar is known as co-founder of Pledge 1%, which urges companies to donate at least 1% of equity, employee time or products to charity. Six years the group has 4,000 companies committed to this pledge — it’s becoming a movement.

RONNIE AND GERALD CHAN: Their father, Chan Tseng-Tsi, founded Hang Lung in Hong Kong in 1960. Today, the siblings Ronnie (left) and Gerald Chan are top Asian businessmen. Ronnie is the chair of Hang Lung Group, which since 1990, has branched out in key cities in Mainland China. Gerard is the cofounder of Morningside Group, which owns and manages a variety of companies — from manufacturing and public transport to high tech and biotech — in Asia, North America, and Europe. In 2014, the siblings were cited for donating $175 million to Harvard University’s school of public health, the largest-gift ever to the university. Harvard is a leading centre today doing COVID-related medical research.

JOE AND CLARA TSAI: Joseph “Joe” Chung-Hsin Tsai, 56, is a Taiwanese billionaire businessman and philanthropist. Joe Tsai, a cofounder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, has a strong interest in sports. Through the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation, the husband-and-wife team pledged $220 million in July toward a first-of-its-kind collaboration that studies the biology of peak human performance. The Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance brings together six public and private institutions, including Boston Children's Hospital, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and Stanford University (Wu Tsai's alma mater). The Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation also pledged $50 million in August 2020 to create a social justice fund to fight systemic racism and promoting economic mobility, and includes initiatives such as interest-free loans for Black-owned businesses. In February, the foundation donated an undisclosed amount to Yale for research. Joe Tsai (right) with his wife Clara Wu and children Dash, Jacob and Alex in 2019. AFP

MICHAEL KIM: The Korean-American billionaire Michael Byungju Kim, 58, founded MBK Partners, one of Asia’s largest private equity firms. He was recently honoured for his commitment to donate 30 billion won ($25.5 million) to the Seoul government for a new public library—the latest in a string of donations made by Kim to support education causes. He set up the MBK Scholarship Foundation in 2007 to support deserving students in need of financial assistance to get a college education. A total of 155 students have received scholarships from the foundation so far. With his donation, the five-storey 9,000-sqm Seoul Public Kim Byung-ju Library will be built in Seodaemun-gu for 2025 opening. In 2010, Kim donated to his alma mater, Haverford College in the US to build a student dormitory. He has also been a generous donor for another alma mater, Harvard Business School. 

THEODORE PERMADI RACHMAT: "Teddy” Rachmat, 78, is an Indonesian agribusiness tycoon behind the Triputra Group, which employs about 30,000 people. He’s also behind a family-run foundation, the A&A Rachmat Compassionate Service Foundation. Teddy also helped fund Yayasan Indonesia Belajar Mandiri (IJARI) to improve access to education among poor students. It also runs orphanages and healthcare services. For the last two decades his foundation has provided funding and scholarships for around 17 major universities in Indonesia, and helped around 100,000 scholars from poor families.

JACK MA: The richest man in China is also a big-hearted philanthropist. Some of his philanthropy projects include education and the environment. His major focus: training a fresh crop of entrepreneurs. In 2020, Jack Ma donated nearly $500 million, according to one report. That was the year Alibaba and Ant Group faced mounting regulatory pressure. China's tech industry becoming the most charitable for the year, with Alibaba’s Jack Ma, Tencent founder Pony Ma and ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming making the top three.

PHAM NHAT VUONG: Forbes Asia honoured Vietnam’s richest man, Pham Nhat Vuong, 53, for making significant contribution to help alleviate the impact of COVID-19 on local communities. Starting 2020, the founder and chair of Vietnam’s biggest conglomerate Vingroup, has given over $320 million to Vietnam’s pandemic relief. Pham and his wife's VinFuture Foundation also established the $4.5 million VinFuture Prize for science and technological innovation. 

LI KA-SHING: Hong Kong property tycoon Li Ka-Shing, 93, channeled HK$250 million ($32.04 million) into various forms of charity through the Li Ka Shing Foundation, including HK$100 million ($12.82 million) to communities in Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus outbreak was first reported. In addition, Li also donated HK$1 billion ($128,000,000) in relief funds in late 2019, benefitting over 28,000 local businesses hit hard by the Hong Kong’s political unrest. In 2021, the foundation gave generous amounts in support of the COVID-19 Vaccination Programme in Hong Kong.

TADASHI YANAI: Tadashi Yanai, 72, is the head of Fast Retailing and owner of Uniqlo. Yanai gave ¥11.2 billion ($97.6 million) to two universities in the Japan. This included a ¥10 billion ($87 billion) donation to Kyoto University to facilitate research on diseases and to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus.