Charity: What to Do?

The following story comes from one of my favorite newspapers, The Straits Times in Singapore.

FIVE years after the eruption of the National Kidney Foundation scandal, Mr Willie Cheng, who blew the whistle on its then-$189 million reserves, breaks his silence. With a book, no less.

He has written an authoritative tome on the charity sector, covering everything from nonprofit management to philanthropic giving, called Doing Good Well, which will be launched on Wednesday.
It has a chapter containing what Mr Gerard Ee, chairman of today's NKF, calls 'the most complete and insightful account' of the NKF fall-out. Here are excerpts of ST's interview with him, where he talks about the most memorable lessons he has learnt in the last five years.
Q. After five years in non-profit work, what's the most memorable lesson you've learnt?
A. One thing that struck me quite a fair bit recently is that you don't need to be immersed in charities to be charitable or make an impact on charity.
The likes of William Hewlett and David Packard probably made a much bigger impact than say, even Professor Muhammad Yunus who founded Grameen Bank, a community development bank in Bangladesh that makes small loans to the impoverished without requiring collateral.
Prof Yunus has been widely celebrated, winning the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, deservedly so, for his contributions to microfinance.
Hewlett and Packard founded HP which changed the way the world works and live through technology. In addition, they left behind two charitable foundations with more than $15 billion in assets and which have been making grants of $500 million every year.

What wrapped it up for me was billionaire investor Warren Buffet. When asked by Fortune in 2006 why he waited so long to give away his money, he said he thought the person compounding money at a faster rate than most people was in a better position to give to charity 20 years later.

Go to the Straits Times for the rest of the story.