The View | Look closer, and you’ll see charitable foundations are often not about giving
Examine the tax structure behind charitable foundations, and in some cases it turns out that the benefactor is the one to actually benefit
The central question that private bankers ask their clients is: “What does your money mean to you?” It’s a fundamental moral issue at all levels of wealth. Revealing answers range from the odious (controlling the lives of your family members) to the visionary (saving the world).
Eventually, bankers say, new wealth enjoys the luxury lifestyle for about five years before they start looking for some purpose in their lives.
New and old Asian wealth have confused and conflated the meaning of charity versus philanthropy, and the need to accomplish more with their vast assets. The best analogy is that charity is when you hand money to the Salvation Army in the street, who then decides how to distribute it. Philanthropy is when you stand in the street and decide by yourself who to hand money to.
Living with the obligations and responsibilities of wealth isn’t easy. Big money creates its own gravity, forcing their owners’ lives into an orbit. Gift giving as a form of charity is certainly commendable and flexible, allowing donors to shift the management of charity to established organisations.
But this concept is becoming inadequate, even corrupted, considering the super wealth being created by technology success. And charities are also becoming a source of potential abuse.
Being a philanthropist is an abused cliché in Hong Kong, used in the society pages of glamour magazines and tabloids to glorify random gift giving.