Learning the Art of Giving
http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501060911-1531426,00.html
Asia's superrich are grappling with an enviable new challenge: how to
give away their billions
By BRYAN WALSH | HONG KONG
Monday, Sep. 04, 2006
For Rohini Nilekani, making the money was the easy part. The
Bangalore-based wife of Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani, Rohini owns 1.67%
of the Indian outsourcing company, and her personal fortune soared to
about $300 million along with the meteoric rise of its stock. She calls
her windfall "a quite frightening amount of money." And as soon as it
started rolling in, the social activist and journalist began to look
for ways to give enormous sums away.
That's been the hard part. With little guidance available for the
country's would-be Rockefellers, Nilekani became a self-taught
philanthropist, building two foundations from the ground up. So far,
she has provided a total of $37 million to Akshara Foundation, which is
dedicated to education, and the Arghyam trust, which tackles water
issues. But the entrepreneurial zeal she brings to the organizations
she runs is as striking as the size of the checks she's been signing.
The source of her inspiration? "We're learning from the Bill Gates
Foundation, and ones like it," she says, referring to the Microsoft
co-founder's famously hands-on, results-driven charitable institution.
"It's about accountability and sustainability now. We want to make
improvements on a level that no one else has done before."
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