News & Trends for Donor-Advised Giving to Asia

Recovery from Fall 2009 Disasters will Take Months or Years

Beginning in the final week of September, Asia has been battered by several deadly natural disasters. Multiple typhoons have struck the Philippines, killing hundreds. The first, Typhoon Ketsana, moved on to cause destruction in Southeast Asia as well.

The most deadly events were consecutive earthquakes in western Sumatra that killed over a thousand in Indonesia. In addition, massive flooding in south India, and an earthquake and tsunami in Samoas have destroyed entire towns.

While the immediate response to these disasters has included significant corporate giving and donations from large international groups, such as the Red Cross and the UN, the longer-term recovery process will likely outlive this initial surge in philanthropy from the international community.

The initial provisioning of food, water, shelter and medical care often takes a few days. Based on needs following past disasters, affected communities will likely require the following support and services from local groups: rebuilding of homes and schools; microfinance and job training for those whose businesses were destroyed; psycho-social services to relieve stress from death and hardship caused by the disaster; and education and scholarships for affected students.

Click here for more information on Give2Asia's short-term and long-term disaster relief efforts to these affected areas.

Give2Asia's Philanthropic Community Takes Action in Response to Consecutive Asian Disasters

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Give2Asia, a U.S. public charity which empowers donors and local Asia-based charitable groups, is partnering with corporations, foundations and individuals to help on-the-ground organizations respond to recent disasters in Taiwan, Southeast Asia and India.

Since August, Give2Asia’s donors have supported disaster relief projects across Asia in response to typhoons in Southeast Asia and Taiwan, massive flooding in South India, and successive earthquakes in Western Sumatra in Indonesia. Donors have given over US$400,000 for disaster relief since August. Contributions to support disaster relief projects can be made online at www.give2asia.org/relief.

Food Insecurity in Asia

By Dien Yuen, Director of Philanthropy

Through 2007 and 2008, as the financial crisis was unfolding in the U.S., a food crisis was raging through most of the developing world - especially in Asia. Rapid increases and decreases in food prices across the developing world exacerbates the plight of communities that are already suffering from poverty and hunger. Hunger persists in Asia - even in China, India and Vietnam - countries that have already been experiencing unprecedented rapid economic growth over the past decade. 

As part of our philanthropic education initiative, Give2Asia presented a private gathering that brought together leaders from the Filipino community along with advisors from the local areas to discuss these issues. Dr. Bruce Tolentino, Director of Economic Reform and Development of The Asia Foundation, shared his perception of the food price crisis and how donors could help. The topic, "Food Insecurity in Asia" was hosted by Mr. Robbie Fabian, Resource Development Consultant and Mr. Joe Lumarda, Trustee of Give2Asia and SVP of Capital Group Companies. Held in the boardroom of the California Community Foundation (CCF), Ms. Carol Bradford, VP of External and Donor Relations of CCF opened the event with a brief introduction of the Foundation's work. 

Expert Spotlight: Dr. Bruce Tolentino, The Asia Foundation Director of Economic Reform and Development Programs

On September 16, 2009 in Los Angeles, Give2Asia will host a private luncheon featuring Dr. Bruce Tolentino of The Asia Foundation who will be discussing "Food Insecurity in Asia." Due to the financial crisis in the last few years, a food dilemma has unfolded in most of the developing world, especially Asia. For example in 2003, Vietnamese rice was priced at US$167 per ton and jumped to US$500 per ton by the middle of 2008. By the end of the first quarter in 2009, however, prices went back to "normal."

Tolentino will discuss the recent volatility in food prices in Asia and its correlation with the ongoing global financial crisis. He will also cover The Asia Foundation's programming in response to the food crisis, which will help prevent or mitigate the negative impacts of the food prices.

Lessons for Fundraising in the New Year

By Birger Stamperdahl and Kalsang Y. Tashi, Give2Asia

The start of a new year for many is a time for making plans, setting goals and declaring resolutions. For those of us in the nonprofit world, it also is a time to assess the success of the past year and our efforts to move the needle on the social issues we care about. Perhaps this year more than most, our success and ability to meet future goals depends on effective fundraising.

With that in mind, we’ve taken a step back to consider some of the successful fundraising efforts that have been employed by the hundreds of organizations in Give2Asia’s network. These efforts range from simply putting up a donation button on a website to carrying out large gala events. Different strategies make sense depending on the organization, their resources, and their base of support.

Several groups this past fall were quite successful raising money. In fact, Q4 2008 was the busiest Q4 of any year we’ve had since our founding in 2001 – despite the economy. This success was based partly on the ability of our network to fundraise within their own communities, and we want to share a couple of examples of what groups did in 2008 to raise money. These are not examples of multi-million dollar fundraising efforts. However, they do stand out as good efforts and examples for how to make U.S. fundraising successful.

Both have these basic similarities:

• They appeal to a very specific, predefined audience
• Before the campaign, they leverage people within their target audience to lead the fundraising and build interest 
• The fundraising itself helps to create ongoing ties within the donors’ community so that giving also has an immediate reward, in these examples there was either an event or a matching gift