January 6, 2010 | Read Time: 3 minutes
As the global economy recovers, major philanthropists will emerge in Asia and other parts of the world and by 2020 their giving could rival that of wealthy American donors.
At the same time, humanitarian emergencies triggered by climate change will increase, spurring large charitable efforts to help sub-Saharan Africa and other impoverished parts of the world, nonprofit experts and futurists say.
Leslie Lenkowsky, a professor of public affairs and philanthropy at Indiana University and a Chronicle columnist, says communications technology and other globalization shifts already have made Americans more willing to assist recovery efforts from foreign disasters and causes. In the years ahead, they will also lead to more Western-style philanthropy around the world. “Those global trends broaden the boundaries of compassion or sympathy, not only leading to more giving by the U.S. to places abroad but also leading to the adoption of philanthropy in places where it may not be native or indigenous,” he says.
Indeed, Mario Morino, chairman of Venture Philanthropy Partners, a philanthropic fund in Washington, says a new generation of philanthropists will see themselves as citizens of the world. “It’s as easy for them to think about Europe and Africa as something two blocks from home,” he says.
A Global Compact
To facilitate cross-border giving, Steve Gunderson, chief executive of the Council on Foundations, an association of grant makers, predicts that by 2020 the United States and other nations will have signed a “global compact on philanthropy.” A country could sign the compact if it met minimum standards of oversight of its charities; this move would reassure foreign donors and allow them to receive a tax deduction for supporting a charity based in another part of the world.
India and China top the list for potential hot spots of new philanthropy. Both countries have sought to improve the legal and tax structure for charity work and both have an emerging class of wealthy people.
While individuals in the Asia-Pacific region with more than $1-million in assets were hit hard by the financial crisis, they are expected to recover more quickly than rich people in other parts of the world, says a report from Capgemini Financial Services, a consulting company, and Merrill Lynch. The report, which was released in October, predicts that the combined assets of the rich in China and India in the next years could surpass the wealth held by North American millionaires and billionaires.
Such wealth is likely to produce more giving, says Matthew Bishop, the co-author of Philanthrocapitalism. “We will see some very interesting big Indian foundations and probably some Chinese ones as well” in the years ahead, he says. For example, he predicts that Lakshmi Mittal, an Indian steel magnate who lives in Britain, will emerge as a major global donor in the next decade. Mr. Mittal is one of the wealthiest people in the world with $19.3-billion, says Forbes magazine.
The wealthy around the world may take to philanthropy in part because global problems will increase, say some observers. In the next 10 years, the human race will stress the “carrying capacity” of the planet, with water shortages and famine becoming more common, says James Canton, chief executive of the Institute for Global Futures, in San Francisco.
“There will be new food conflicts in the near future,” he says.
Jeff Erikson, who leads the American office of SustainAbility, a global company that assists businesses with their environmental policies, predicts that nonprofit groups and corporations will shift their climate-change work, focusing more on humanitarian problems than environmental ones. “There’s going to be a whole lot more climate refugees; there’s going to be a whole lot more need for stable water resources,” he says. “The climate’s no longer going to be about the environment. It’s going to be about the impact on people and communities.”
