APPC is preparing to embark on a new survey on individual giving in the region, The Measure of Giving in Asia-Pacific: Benchmarking philanthropy in the region. The new survey aims to track the growth of individual philanthropy in the Asia-Pacific region by means of annual giving surveys in various countries.

It will work on alternating cycles of six or so countries per year. Increased knowledge about indigenous giving will highlight local resources, encouraging more non-profit institutions to consider individuals as potential givers and to look for homegrown resources. The study follows up APPC’s 1999 study, Investing in Ourselves: Giving and fund raising in Asia, which documented attitudes to giving and successful fundraising in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines and Thailand.

The APPC website also has grantmakers’ profiles for Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia and the Philippines. Current information about foundations’ annual grants programmes is provided, including funding priorities and average size of grants.

For more information
http://www.asianphilanthropy.org

Chinese NGOs win awards at World Bank marketplace

The World Bank held a ‘marketplace’ in February for social development ideas put forward by Chinese NGOs. A hundred projects competed for small grants from the Bank in what it described as an attempt to promote civil society in China; 30 of these won awards totalling $650,000. The winning ideas included supplying environmentally sustainable biological gas to single mothers in Hubei Province; creating support networks for waste collectors in Shenzhen City; and teaching poor children in pastoral areas of Xinjiang vocational skills by providing them with microcredit.

Source
World Bank Press Review, 24 and 27 February 2006