Call for more partnerships with philanthropies to tackle issues

The challenges facing the world today are too large and complex for governments and the social sector to tackle alone, and partnerships between the public and private sector as well as donors and philanthropic groups have become increasingly important, said participants at the inaugural Philanthropy Asia Summit yesterday.

To this end, philanthropists need to move beyond issuing cheques to using their large resources to bring about change, they said.

The one-day event organised by Temasek Foundation and held in a hybrid format at The Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore, focused on climate change, pandemic security and the widening education gap within and across countries. It saw groups pitching projects from harnessing artificial intelligence to close the education gap to a global early-warning system for pathogens that cause pandemics.

UBS announced a US$2 million (S$2.7 million) donation to The Mangrove 40 initiative to design nature-based solutions to conserve and restore mangroves. It will invest an additional 10 per cent to match other donors' contributions.

Temasek Holdings executive director and chief executive Dilhan Pillay Sandrasegara called on participants to develop new models of philanthropy that can multiply impact and be a force for good.

In a keynote speech, Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for Social Policies Tharman Shanmugaratnam said a shift is needed to see philanthropy not in terms of charity, but as risk capital that can help to mobilise and channel resources from business and even government sources. Citing climate action, he said technologies that can mitigate the impact of climate change are sometimes seen as too risky for traditional investors. Philanthropies can step in by investing in a portfolio of nascent technologies, and a few breakthrough successes will bring immense social returns, he added.

"They do have a different risk absorption capacity. They do have the ability to take risks where the private sector can't. And they do have the ability to fail, which we must expect as we now invest in the technologies and the innovations of the future," he said.

Large institutional investors together with family offices and foundations, goaded by public opinion, can also be a very effective force in persuading companies to switch to greener ways of doing things, he added.

These sentiments were echoed by Bloomberg founder Michael R. Bloomberg, whose Bloomberg Philanthropies is guided by the principle of investing in untested ideas others may find too risky. At a later session moderated by Temasek Foundation's head of philanthropy advocates Jennifer Lewis, he spoke of how his foundation worked to close coal-fired power plants by getting employees, consumers and stock holders to see their common interest so they would put pressure on the plant owners to act. "In government, you have to guarantee to the public that what you're spending their money on is going to work," said the former New York City mayor. "You can't do that if you're going to innovate."

The role of government is to provide incentives through taxes and regulation, and provide the political leadership needed to promote trust, said Mr Tharman. Describing trust as a critical ingredient, he added that societies and communities where everyone plays by the rules, and where people feel a little shamed when they do not do so, are the ones that will do better.

He urged philanthropies to continue with the momentum of giving gained during the pandemic.

"The more that is done voluntarily, by those who have wealth and those who are better off, the less you need for government to step into the game eventually, through a more formal tax and transfer system," he said.

"You need both, but leadership on the part of philanthropies and corporates to do the right thing leads to not just an alternative way of transferring monies, it leads to a better culture. It leads to a culture that people can see and feel, that's quite different from simply having governments collect taxes and then finding the best way of distributing it to the right people."