As Asian wealth has surged in recent decades, so has the region’s corporate philanthropy. The 20 most generous Asian corporate funders currently commit an average of $3.7 billion annually to social and environmental causes. Corporate funders represent 35% of the region’s 20 largest philanthropies, well above the 25% of the top 20 global philanthropies represented by corporate funders. Not surprisingly, why and how corporations deploy such large sums in the region has become a topic of great interest.
When it comes to why, Asian corporate culture offers some answers. In many Western countries, strong voices have emerged in recent years to challenge the dominant view that profit is the sole purpose of doing business. By contrast, the blending of profit with social purpose has long been widely practiced by Asian corporations, and these efforts come in many flavors, influenced by religious teachings and the region’s broad orientation towards collectivism. As the Economist Impact’s 2025 report on Asian corporate giving, “The Business of Doing Good in Asia,” explains, “Confucian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic values, along with collectivist traditions, often frame businesses as moral actors with duties to their communities and countries.” (The Institute of Philanthropy funded both Bridgespan’s and the Economist Impact’s research.)
Governments also take an active role by enacting laws that range in application from official encouragement — typically aligned with national development priorities — to mandated spending. For instance, China made corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting a legal obligation in 2005, and has since applied the law to promote giving in line with national priorities. And in 2013, India mandated that qualifying large companies must spend at least 2% of their average three-year net profits on CSR activities.
Indeed, corporate philanthropy is such a key source of funding in Asia that new research by the Commission on Asian Philanthropy identified it as one of five distinct growth models that are transforming philanthropy in the region, along with community-led, faith-based, state-led and high-net-worth individual-led models.
But wherever it is practiced across the globe, corporate giving isn’t just an exercise in altruism. Done well, it can enhance a corporation’s competitive advantage and burnish its public image, while shaping societal and environmental outcomes.
And despite the cultural differences that motivate their philanthropy, how Asian corporations give shows similarities with their non-Asian counterparts. Drawing from global benchmarking and numerous interviews, Bridgespan identified three widely used approaches, which we highlighted in a report published late last year. We’ll explore these approaches below.
1. Giving to a Community or Region
Place-based giving addresses social or environmental needs in specific geographic areas, usually communities or locations adjacent to company operations where staff and their families live. Done well, it can produce long-term positive results, including strengthening a corporation’s standing with its employees and the community, increasing customer loyalty, and generating positive media attention. Asian corporations often draw on their knowledge of local communities and work with community groups to tailor initiatives to address specific needs.
For example, Tata Steel Foundation partners closely with local communities and governments in areas near its factories in Jharkland and Odisha, India, to address high maternal and infant mortality rates in these areas. In 2009, the foundation launched the Maternal and Newborn Survival Initiative, or MANSI, which built the skills of government-accredited voluntary health workers in these areas to implement home-based maternal and neonatal care. It also trained these workers on a broader lifecycle approach to address root causes of infant and child mortality.
A five-year period (2011-2015) evaluation of the pilot programme revealed a reduction in neonatal and infant mortality rates of approximately 61% and 63%, respectively. The programme subsequently scaled up from 167 pilot villages to 1,686 villages.
2. Taking Advantage of Distinct Corporate Capabilities
Many Asian corporations deploy core business capabilities — such as specific knowledge, manufacturing processes, talent or technology — for social or environmental benefit. Done well, applying a company’s core assets to social purposes benefits both society and the company. As Karen Ngui, managing director and head of DBS Foundation, the corporate foundation of Singapore’s DBS Bank, put it: “Play to [your] strengths. Play to the business or areas of expertise that you have. Best to not get distracted and do something else, when you will not have that multiplier effect.”
An example of this approach can be seen in the Tencent Foundation’s efforts to blend social impact with the company’s core digital communication and payment platforms, Weixin and WeChat, to deliver on its pledge to implement “Tech for Good.” In 2024, the foundation launched a Digital Platform for Compassion to facilitate giving by individuals and others to directly aid people in need. For instance, donations made via Weixin are processed and distributed as “Compassion Vouchers” to individuals impacted by earthquakes or floods. “If it’s not related to Tencent’s core capabilities, then it might not be our way of doing social value creation,” says Zhang Fan, Tencent Foundation’s programme director.
3. Building Giving Around the Core Business
Corporations that embrace this approach deliver high-value products or services to a population in need in a manner that is complementary to — and reinforces — its core business. They may do so by designing their giving around a target customer segment or an issue their business seeks to address, or around their corporate mission. Done well, this approach provides historically marginalised communities access to products and services they would otherwise not receive. Through strengthening access to these communities, corporations may also be seeding future market opportunities. What may strike some as overreach, others view as a pragmatic way to lead with purpose.
For example, the core business of Taikang Insurance Group in China is affordable eldercare insurance and low-cost housing for the elderly. Insights gained from this work led Taikang to understand that certain aspects of elder care are underfunded. As a result, Taiking Yicai Foundation, one of the corporate foundations under Taikang, has donated thousands of pieces of equipment to 369 eldercare organisations and funded training for 82,000 eldercare workers. In conjunction with the government’s push for rural revitalisation, the foundation also has funded efforts to improve rural health facilities for the elderly.
Corporations bring a variety of motivations to each of these three approaches. The Economist Impact’s report on Asian corporate philanthropy describes six, each reflecting a distinct strategy embedded in a corporation’s values and the environment where it operates. The report finds that corporate motivations are “rooted in founder beliefs, shaped by state priorities, driven by employee advocacy, built on public trust, focused on sector transformation, or sparked by social need.”
The need for better measurement
Unfortunately, good intentions don’t always result in faithful implementation. Critics of corporate giving cite instances of “social washing” and greenwashing — i.e., false or misleading claims about their social responsibility activities or environmental impacts or benefits. A growing number of companies have been linked to both, according to a 2023 report by RepRisk, a company that analyses ESG data to encourage responsible company behaviour.
The best defense to counter accusations of false or misleading social impact claims is rigorous measurement and evaluation. Yet, Bridgespan research has shown that less than 30% of the 20 largest global and Asian corporate givers report impact outcomes. Growing demand for better impact measurement has prompted some corporations to complement their collection of low-hanging outputs data with new efforts to invest in harder-to-measure long-term outcomes. According to Aloka Majumdar, global head of philanthropy and head of sustainability at HSBC India: “We work with our partners and tell them to bring in a few short-term outcomes and marry it with their long-term impact goals.”
Ultimately, corporate leaders need impact metrics that clearly convey results. Just as importantly, measurement and evaluation enables learning and informs decision making that improves corporate initiatives. A learning mindset allows corporations to adapt their impact strategies based on evidence.
Clearly, there’s no one-size-fits-all way to proceed. Corporate decision makers have tough choices to make and multiple approaches to consider. As the Economist Impact report put it: “There is growing momentum for businesses in the region to move beyond informal doing good practices towards more formalised, outcome-driven systems, supported by stronger accountability and clearer measurement.” Those who step up to this challenge can reshape not only their companies, but the future.
Gwendolyn Lim is a partner and Denise Chew is a manager at The Bridgespan Group’s Singapore office.
Photo credit: pondsaksit
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