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Ronnie Chan Chi-chung of Hang Lung Group's US$350 million donation to Harvard was among the world's largest. Photo: Sam Tsang
Opinion
The View
by Peter Guy
The View
by Peter Guy

Hong Kong's billionaires need to raise their philanthropic goals to a world-class level

The city needs to explore use of large-scale philanthropy as a way to recycle capital back into the economy and society

Reading what extols about its chic crowd can inflict a crippling sense of inescapable ennui.

A recent issue where the theme was philanthropy only served to show how our local elite have misinterpreted the responsibility and difference between charity and philanthropy.

More importantly, it demonstrates how the business of philanthropy has a long way to go in Hong Kong before it can become a powerful enterprise solving the city's problems and quality of life.

is the mouthpiece for Hong Kong's elite. So when it starts publicising the philanthropic efforts of high society, one must examine what it means in the post-Occupy Hong Kong society and economy.

Strangely enough, is probably Hong Kong's only major English-language publication that has not taken an editorial position on or mentioned the city's most controversial civil protest in its pages.

Perhaps Hong Kong's establishment believes that some charity balls and donations (or what the government calls "sweeteners") are what it takes to tame disenfranchised young people and dispel the myth that Hong Kong is facing an irreversible disparity of wealth and economic opportunity that threatens its stability.

One definition says, "Charity refers to the direct relief of suffering and social problems. Philanthropy systematically seeks out root causes of these issues and endeavours to find a solution."

As John Rockefeller said, "The best philanthropy is constantly in search of the finalities - a search for a cause, an attempt to cure evils at their source."

Breaking away from an "El Patron" sense of noblesse oblige and evolving into a more risky, but imaginative role of great problem solver is the only meaningful way for billionaires to help people.

Many of Hong Kong's wealthy think philanthropy is the same as making ad hoc donations to charities. While one cannot expect Hong Kong's ruthlessly self-centred culture to give way to collective optimism, large-scale philanthropy is an important, long-term, sustainable mechanism for redistributing wealth and recycling capital back into the economy and society. At some point, vast family wealth must make its way back to greater society.

's feature on a philanthropic effort by Peter Woo Kwong-ching, former chairman of Wharf Holdings and Wheelock and Co is especially disappointing. While Woo is sincere in his effort to create entrepreneurs out of the city's most disadvantage children attending under-funded, tier-three schools, his campaign is indecisive.

According to the feature, Wheelock/Wharf started by agreeing to assist 10 band-three schools by committing HK$2.5 million to each school every year for six years - a total of HK$150 million. This is an insignificant amount for companies with market caps of HK$81.5 billion (Wheelock) and HK$149.3 billion (Wharf) or for the family owners who are among the richest in the world.

Actually, they could easily rebuild every public school in Hong Kong, hire more teachers and equip every student with Macs without missing their annual dividends. Now wouldn't something like that be a game changer?

Ronnie Chan Chi-chung of Hang Lung Group's US$350 million donation to Harvard was among the world's largest. While critics argue that rich universities like Harvard and Yale have such big endowments that they are certainly not in dire need of any more money, Hong Kong's billionaires need to be thinking about gifts and programmes at that world-class level.

A bias towards erecting buildings named after themselves and an aversion to funding operational budgets hinders greater development of more powerful institutions and projects in Hong Kong.

In 2001, Gordon Moore and his wife donated US$600 million to the California Institute of Technology, one of the largest academic donations in history. Moore, a founder of Intel, directed the capital to be used for funding a broad range of education and research for generations to come.

To be fair, a major impediment to donating large sums is the lack of local organisations that are properly staffed to manage, distribute and monitor major fund distribution programmes. Ivy League universities have some of the most experienced endowment and asset managers in the world.

Few organisations in Hong Kong, besides the Jockey Club, are set up with the governance required for large-scale, long-term philanthropy. Simply put, the goals of billionaire philanthropy in Hong Kong are simply too small. It needs to be engaged in glorious ambitions.

Peter Guy is a financial writer and former international banker

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Glorious ambitions
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