By Dien Yuen, Give2Asia
Community foundations are well known in the U.S. for raising charitable funds from the community and distributing the money back to the area's non-profit organizations. In the U.S., we have approximately 780 community foundations. Globally, there are 1,441 community foundations in 51 countries. In Asia, community foundations exist in India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines.

Community foundations exist in various forms but they are basically a charitable entity used to encourage philanthropy and build communities of giving and sharing. The first community foundation was formed in the U.S. and since then the concept has been exported around the world. In 2006, The
Global Fund for Community Foundations was formed. It is a joint initiative of the World Bank, Ford Foundation and Mott Foundation as a mechanism to broad the development of community foundations. The Fund is a project of
WINGS and it is hosted by the
European Foundation Centre in Brussels. Since their launch, the Fund has made grants amounting to almost US $1.5 million to 83 organizations in 33 countries.
The
2008 Community Foundation Global Status Report published by WINGS (Worldwide Initiatives for Grantmaker Support) tracks the growth of community foundations globally. In reviewing the Global Status Report, I noticed several similarities of the community foundations in Asia. For example, outside organizations such as the Ford Foundation and Synergos Institute were instrumental in helping establish many of these community foundation. Individuals and corporations do not always fully understand the value of an intermediary to promote, encourage and bring together philanthropic initiatives. In other words, they preferred to give directly to the beneficiary. Furthermore, most of these community foundations are relatively new, with the oldest one registered in 1991. Consequently, their grantmaking is relatively small but several do have endowments.
India
The first community foundation in India, the Bombay Community Public Trust, which was established in 1991 with the assistance of the Centre for Advancement of Philanthropy based in Mumbai. There are currently six formally established community foundations in India. Corporate donors are the largest source of income.
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