Businessman Turns His Success Into Opportunity for Youngsters in China

For Joseph Ko, education was the key to escaping a hardscrabble childhood in Taiwan and rising to his

current position as founder and president of a California office-equipment company that employs 500 people at its factory in Guangdong province in southern China.

“When I was a kid in Taiwan, our school’s windows were always broken, and we had to cover them with newspaper,” recalls Mr. Ko, who arrived in the United States in 1973 at age 21. He took jobs as a waiter, dishwasher, and janitor while studying civil engineering at the University of California at Davis.

It’s no surprise, then, that improving educational opportunities for schoolchildren in China and Taiwan is at the core of Mr. Ko’s philanthropy. Even as a newly minted college graduate, he began donating money through the Christian Children’s Fund to underwrite the educational costs and other expenses of two kids in Taiwan. (Mr. Ko is Roman Catholic.)

Since then, Mr. Ko has helped build 16 schools in China, usually contributing $20,000 to $40,000 per school. Each school serves 200 to 300 pupils.

Mr. Ko is not alone. Chinese-Americans, who traditionally have sent money back to their relatives through family associations, are finding new ways to support schools, medical clinics, cultural groups, and other public institutions more systematically.

Among their newer options is Give2Asia, a grant-making organization set up in 2000 by the Asia Foundation to promote giving to Asian countries.

Mike Rea, managing director of Give2Asia, in San Francisco, notes that his organization, with 15 Asia Foundation offices across Asia for support, is well-placed to monitor the financial health and program successes of its donors’ potential grantees.

“Our niche is higher end, customized, personalized giving for American donors, as well as partnering with organizations in Asia to work in the United States,” says Mr. Rea. The fund, which accepts gifts of $5,000 or more, has attracted an eclectic group of some 60 donors, who have given more than $1.5-million.

Alumni Fund

For example, Chinese-American graduates of Kaohsiung Medical University, in Taiwan, have had an alumni association for more than 30 years, but only recently set up a U.S. fund to support its activities in a more organized way. More than 500 alumni have settled in the United States, says David C. Yang, a 1965 graduate who is director of nuclear medicine at New York Methodist Hospital, as well as chairman of Friends of Kaohsiung Medical University, the charity created to raise money among U.S. donors.

“We sent one mailing out before last Christmas and got $150,000 in donations,” notes Dr. Yang. The money is being collected by Give2Asia.

Dr. Yang says alumni of the medical school have a vested interest in its continual improvement. “Only when the school does well can we have good graduates coming out,” he observes. “And when they do well, that affects our reputation.”

Joyce Hsu, another Give2Asia donor, describes the organization as “a very convenient way to give in a tax-deductible way.” People who donate to Give2Asia can deduct the money from their U.S. income taxes, something that would be much more difficult to do if they sent the money directly overseas.

Born in China, Ms. Hsu attended high school and college in Taiwan, and then came to the United States, where she studied chemistry at the California Institute of Technology and got a job as a biochemist. A longtime donor to Christian groups in Taiwan, she became interested in supporting cancer-research foundations in Asia after her own bout with breast cancer five years ago.

Ms. Hsu and her husband, Ta-lin Hsu, a venture capitalist, now use Give2Asia to do much of their overseas charitable giving, including support of cultural programs — she herself is an amateur playwright. Some of their money went to groups rebuilding after a destructive 1999 earthquake in Taiwan. More recently, Ms. Hsu has supported the latest production of the Cloud Gate Theater, a Taiwanese dance troupe that combines ancient Chinese arts with modern dance.

Beyond Scholarships

As for Mr. Ko — whose business, Telko, makes paper shredders, surveillance cameras, and other office and security equipment — the process of giving back to the country of his ancestors has also become more structured and sophisticated over time.

His initial giving focused on providing scholarships to Chinese students, but he soon realized that such efforts alone were not enough to ensure a good education.

“Many kids in China either don’t have an elementary school to go to at all, or maybe have to walk two hours to get there,” he observes, “and when they get there, it basically is just a hut.”

So he decided in 1987 to help build an elementary school in his parents’ hometown of Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei province in eastern China, after visiting the region for the first time. Mr. Ko contributed about $100,000 toward the total cost of $150,000 for two buildings, a soccer field, and two basketball courts.

“In Chinese culture, when you’re more established, you contribute back to your hometown, back to your home state,” Mr. Ko says.

His dream, he says, “is to build at least one school in every province.” So far he has built or is building schools in 12 provinces — leaving him 10 more to go.

He also continues to give scholarships, currently through the All-China Women’s Federation. Mr. Ko and his wife finance the elementary-school education of about 100 girls in China, each of whose tuition fees and textbooks total about $50 a year. Educating girls is particularly important in China, he says, because of the key role they play in teaching their entire families.

Tangible Results

Mr. Ko’s business-related contacts with Chinese officials at all levels of government have aided his philanthropic efforts as well.

In building elementary schools, his policy has been to work with agencies of the national government — usually the Chinese Overseas Bureau, which concerns itself with the activities of Chinese people living outside China, or the China Friendship Association, which Mr. Ko compares to an informal department of foreign relations.

By working through those agencies, he says, he has confidence that the national government will monitor activities of the provincial governments, which in turn will ensure that the prescribed construction project is carried out at the local level.

Mr. Ko likes building schools because they are so tangible. It pleases him, he says, to attend their opening ceremonies and to see what impact the schools have not only on students but also on entire communities.

“It’s not just that the kids have a nice place to go to,” he says, “but the government, the local agencies and businesses, and the children’s families really work together with a common goal for the kids.” The schools tend to serve as community centers, as well.

Yet the children remain the focus.

Mr. Ko, who has three children of his own, often arrives at the elementary schools with dozens of soccer balls or basketballs, ever since finding out that one of his new schools owned just two soccer balls for some 250 kids. He also is likely to bring a bag of stuffed animals to distribute, since he says many of the children have never had such a toy.

While he has invited several friends to join him in supporting Chinese elementary schools, Mr. Ko says, he avoids drawing attention in the United States to his gifts. At age 50, he is one of the junior members of the Committee of 100, a group of prominent Chinese-Americans formed to promote better relations between China and the United States, as well as full participation by Chinese-Americans in American life. Members include the architect I.M. Pei and the cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

As part of its mission of generating favorable press about Chinese-Americans, the group is quick to highlight its members’ philanthropy. But Mr. Ko is reticent about his own giving.

“The senior members take the lead, and I normally shut up,” says Mr. Ko with a laugh. “In Chinese culture, if you open your big mouth, they think you’re showing off.”