Forbes hails China’s donor entrepreneurs

Tencent Charity Foundation

Chines entrepreneurs are increasingly donating their money to t he education sector, according to the latest Forbes China Charity List.

Notably, donors have a preference for prestigious universities, especially those overseas, and show an interest in setting up special research institutes and scholarships, the 2017 list found.

For instance, of the total 2.37 billion yuan ($340 million) donated last year by Chen Yidan, co-founder of Tencent Holdings Ltd, around HK$2.5 billion ($321 million) was sent to fund the New Yidan Prize — the world’s biggest education prize that he established in Hong Kong, to recognize outstanding individuals or teams in groundbreaking education research.

Similarly, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd founder Jack Ma also established the Ma & Morley Scholarship at the University of Newcastle in Australia.

Meanwhile, Chen Tianqiao, chairman of Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd and his wife Chrissy Luo, co-sponsored the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute at California Institute of Technology, aiming to create a unique environment for interdisciplinary brain research.

However, the list also revealed that the growing preference for prestigious schools was apparently leading to an unbalanced allocation of resources.

For example, Tsinghua University received 2.99 billion yuan in donations last year, the highest among all research institutions in China, whereas the least funded school got just 180 million yuan.

The Forbes Chinese Charity List, the 11th year it has been issued, is the result of investigating cash donations of private entrepreneurs and companies to public charities each year.

In 2016, a total of 100 entrepreneurs donated 10.38 billion yuan, marking the highest value the list recorded in the past five years.

In last year’s ranking, the top 25 donors contributed more than 100 million yuan each and combined t he Top 10 donors

2. Xu Jiayin, Evergrande Group

3. Chen Tianqiao/ Chrissy Luo, Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd

4. The Yang Guoqiang Family, Country Garden

5. Huang Rulun, Century Golden Resources Group

6. Wang Jianlin, Dalian Wanda Group Co Ltd

7. Lu Zhiqiang, China Oceanwide Holdings Group

8. Jack Ma, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd

9. Jiang Bin, Goertek Inc

9. Xu Jiankang, Baolong Group gave 87.2 percent of the total amount. Chen Yidan, who is the honorary chairman of the Tencent Charity Foundation, topped the list by donating 2.37 billion yuan.

He was followed by Xu Jiayin, chairman of Evergrande Group, giving 1.66 billion yuan and the Chens from Shanda, who poured 790 million yuan into philanthropic causes.

The list showed that Chinese enterprises are dedicated to long-term donations. Among these avid donors, 40 percent of them oversee public companies or have listed groups in their own names.

Half of the companies whose owners made it to the list are based in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong province, the list found. Entrepreneurs from the top three industries — real estate, manufacturing and finance — dominated the list of donors.

Among the 69 donors who disclosed their ages, 46 percent were born in the 1960s. Four were born in the 1940s and the eldest donor was born in 1945. The list found that younger generations of entrepreneurs — born in the 1980s and the 1990s — have started to join the charity force.

He Qi contributed to this story.