APPC Happenings

APPC mourns the passing of Mark Lyons, Director of Research in the Centre for Social Impact in Australia. Mark was involved in the early years of APPC as a member of the Executive Committee. In 1999, when he was with the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, Mark led the efforts to create the Asia Pacific Philanthropy Information Network, APPC’s initial foray in collecting and disseminating research and information on philanthropy and the non-profit sector in Asia Pacific through the Internet.

Members of the Board of Directors of the Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium reflect on the role of philanthropy in addressing regional and national issues in APPC’s contributory chapter to the upcoming book on global philanthropy to be published by the Network of European Foundations The Mercator Fund.

Entitled “Creating the Future through Philanthropy”, the chapter also discusses the impact of the global financial downturn on philanthropic activities and the multi-sectoral responses to curb the effects of the crisis in the Asia Pacific region.

In countries where Diaspora giving has reached significant levels, givers are in search of more reliable information that can serve to link them up to their preferred causes more efficiently and effectively. This need was identified during the APPC conference on diaspora philanthropy held in Hanoi last May, 2008.

On 27 to 29 April, the Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium hosted the first regional Peer Learning Event (PLE) of the Worldwide Initiative for Grantmakers’ Support. Held in Hong Kong, the two and a half day event was attended by 14 WINGS network participants from Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Pakistan, Philippines and Thailand.

As part of its follow-up activity to its 2008 conference on diaspora philanthropy, translations into Bahasa and Vietnamese of their respective Country Papers and Conference Overview Papers were successfully completed in March 2009. Copies of the translated papers were distributed to various local NGOs in Vietnam and Indonesia.

The translations were completed through the country paper authors and their organizations: Zaim Saidi of the Public Interest Reseach and Advocacy Centre for Indonesia and Prof. Truong thi Kim Chuyen of Vietnam.

As planned in its last board meeting in November 2008, APPC is currently pursuing partnerships with the Worldwide Initiatives for Grantmaker Support (WINGS). APPC has accepted WINGS’ invitation to host the upcoming Peer Learning Event on Engaging Corporations in April 2009 in Hong Kong. This Event will be the first in a series of regional Peer Learning Events for the year and is open to grantmaker associations and support organizations in the WINGS network that are based in the Asia Pacific.

At its Board Meeting last November 2008 in Manila, Philippines, the APPC Board of Directors elected Erna Witoelar as its new Chair. Erna is currently a Board Member of the KEHATI Indonesian Biodiversity Foundation in Jakarta. Prior to being Chair, she served as APPC’s Vice Chair.

Last 5 December 2008, Darwin Chen, APPC Board Member and former Chair, and Ailing Zhuang, also an APPC Board Member, both received the All China Outstanding Philanthropy Worker award from the Chinese government at the China Philanthropy Conference held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Mr. Hu Jintao, President of the People's Republic of China, presided over the ceremony and gave a keynote address on the importance of philanthropy in China after the Sichuan earthquake.

“Philanthropy is always linked with money, but, to me, the real philanthropists are the people that give time. Time is limited; there will be money left when we’re gone; thus, time is more precious.”

These words were shared by Mr Baillieu Myer AC, co-founder of The Myer Foundation and member of the Myer Family, to participants during a panel on Intergenerational Practices of the 2nd APPC Family Philanthropy Workshop on 15-17 September 2008 in Melbourne, Australia. These words proved to be inspirational to the intimate group of workshop participants who were successor-generation members of families in philanthropy.

APPC commissioned the international survey organization AC Nielsen to conduct a study on giving in Sri Lanka, done from 3 to 13 December 2007. Over 500 respondents from urban and rural areas took part in the study, and represented the major geographic divisions of the country.