Giving by Wealthy Chinese and Chinese Americans Is Booming, Study Finds

Philanthropy by wealthy people in China and by Chinese-Americans in the United States is booming, with plenty of room to grow, according to a new study. Higher education is getting the biggest share of their giving.

The number of Chinese-American foundations increased 418 percent from 2000 to 2014, to nearly 1,300 such organizations, the report found. In China, the number of registered foundations increased 430 percent to 5,545 from 2006 to 2016.

Published Wednesday, the report, titled “Chinese and Chinese American Philanthropy,” examines the quantity of and motivations for charitable giving among the two burgeoning groups of donors, while also highlighting key similarities and differences in cause areas and giving philosophies. It includes dozens of profiles of individual donors, some of whom are little known to nonprofit leaders and their fellow big donors, much less to the public.

Those behind the report said they hope it raises the profiles of Chinese and Chinese-American donors and serves as a vehicle to stoke dialogue between philanthropists and nonprofit and civil-society leaders in both countries. To that end, the findings, published in English and Chinese, will be presented at conferences in Hong Kong and Beijing in the coming months.

“I think it is important that we showcase the impact and the motivations of Chinese and Chinese-American philanthropists and how they can strengthen their philanthropy through knowledge transfer and exchange of best practices,” said Marilyn Long, a Southern California philanthropist whose family foundation helped pay for the research.

Flood of Big Gifts

According to the report, wealthy Chinese and Chinese-Americans are taking up structured philanthropy in unprecedented numbers. Among the findings:

• Gifts of at least $1 million by Chinese-Americans in 2014 totaled $492 million, up nearly fivefold from 2008.
• Big contributions from Chinese-American philanthropists made up 1.2 percent of all major philanthropic giving in the United States from 2008 to 2014.
• Four Chinese-American foundations have assets in excess of $100 million: the Cyrus Tang, J.T. Tai & Company, and Clarence T.C. Ching foundations and the Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation.
• Philanthropic giving in China hit $16.6 billion in 2014, up from $10 billion in 2009.

The charitable dollars are going to higher education and K-12 education, followed by disaster and poverty alleviation, local giving, health care, and the environment. In the United States, after higher education, giving went to support health and sciences, international causes, K-12 education, and arts and culture.

The report centers on philanthropists in the United States of Chinese descent and on philanthropists in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau. It was produced by the Global Chinese Philanthropy Initiative, a collaboration of the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California at Los Angeles, the Long U.S.-China Institute at the University of California at Irvine, and the legal-aid and advocacy nonprofit Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles.

Success Stories

Interest in the giving of Chinese and Chinese-Americans has been fueled in recent years by high-profile gifts such brothers Ronnie and Gerald Chan’s $350 million donation to Harvard University in 2014.

Stewart Kwoh, executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, said that much of the philanthropy highlighted in the report is first-generation giving. In the case of Chinese-American philanthropy, it reflects immigrants’ desire to give back to their country and to the institutions that gave them a chance at success, namely colleges.

“It is a newer American story about first-generation immigrants, first-generation wealth, first-generation great philanthropy,” Mr. Kwoh said. “And I think it is amazing. That story really needs to be told, that immigrants do give back to this country in many different ways.”

Many Chinese-American philanthropists have stayed out of the spotlight, even as giving by the group has increased. Mr. Kwoh says there are a number of likely reasons for that, including privacy concerns and worries about being perceived as seeking commendation. And because many of those featured in the report are relatively new to philanthropy, they do not have big foundation staffs or consultants to help generate publicity, he said.

“We do want to bring it to the public’s attention,” Mr. Kwoh said. “Not mainly to just credit people but to say this really should be understood, because there is really a lot of conversions that can happen about how grant making can be as effective as possible. And from all the interviews we have done and all the information we’ve looked at, there is much more to come.”

Accelerating Wealth

Marilyn Long and her husband, John Long, who made their wealth in real-estate investing and started the Long Family Foundation in 1992, said they travel from their home of California to China about twice a year. They see many opportunities for sharing among donors.

“The government officials I’ve talked to and spoken with all agree that philanthropy can become a common thread between the United States and China to create positive relationship and positive outcomes,” Mr. Long said.

They describe the acceleration of wealth there as “dramatic” and said that they are particularly interested in how second-generation wealth holders will take up philanthropy work. Not only will they have the money, Mr. Long noted, but they have technology tools at their disposal that the “Rockefellers never dreamed” of.

China is taking steps to improve the regulation of philanthropy and charitable organizations. A 2016 law made it easier for nonprofits to register and raise money. It also created tax incentives to give. However, another law placing tight restrictions on foreign nonprofits operating in China was denounced by the Obama White House and many nonprofit leaders.

Growth Potential

Just how big could philanthropy in China become? The country is now home to 609 billionaires, compared with 552 in the United States, according to the 2017 Hurun Global Rich List, an annual report of the world’s ultra-wealthy published out of China. (It is sometimes likened to the Forbes rich list.) China is minting new billionaires faster than the United States is, gaining 41 in 2016 compared with the 17 added in the United States. Among all of the 153 self-made women billionaires on the 2017 the list, 79.5 percent were Chinese.

There are parallels between the Gilded Age in the United States and China today, according to Edward Cunningham, who leads the China programs at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University and has written extensively about philanthropy in China. (The Ash Center produces a report on China’s biggest donors.)

“A concentration of wealth resulting from large-scale and rapid industrial growth results in some captains of industry wondering how to give back, and at times how to leverage such giving for continued commercial success,” Mr. Cunningham, who reviewed the new report at the request of The Chronicle, said in an email.

Mr. Cunningham noted a number of important similarities and differences in giving at the elite, big-donor level in the United States and China. The financial sector produces many of the most active donors in the United States, he said. In China, real estate is the source of wealth for a lot of its biggest donors.

Also, the majority of giving in China is done in coordination with government, while in the United States private philanthropy remains mostly separate from government. Big Chinese philanthropists also give less to arts and cultural institutions than those in the U.S., where such organization get significant support.

He described the newly published report’s comparison on ethnic Chinese in differing social, legal, and political environments as “much needed.”

“As giving in mainland China has also grown dramatically, there are increasing networks of U.S.-China philanthropic partnerships that can prove quite powerful — particularly when such networks are ethnic Chinese on both sides.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article mistakenly referred to Edward Cunningham as the head of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University.