Economy

Foundation's starring role in Chinese charity

By Yang Yijun (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-10 11:23

Shanghai: An entrepreneur buying cultural relics may be regarded as a collector, but Maurice Greenberg, former American International Group Inc head and current chairman of C.V. Starr & Co, does so more as an exercise in charity.

Indeed, acts including his repurchase of the ornate window frames of Buddhist Incense (Fo Xiang Ge in Chinese) from the Summer Palace that were returned to China in 1993 through his Starr Foundation, are evidence of Greenberg's efforts to help Chinese society.

The Starr Foundation has made total grants of more than $223 million to China-related organizations since 1956. China has become one of the largest overseas recipients with 9.51 percent of the foundation's grants donated to it in the past 15 years.

"That's natural because we have a deep background and well-tracked long history in China," he said. "The country has huge need."

Starr's roots in China can be traced back to 1919 when Cornelius Vander Starr, the founder of AIG and the foundation, established his first insurance company in Shanghai.

Over the years, the Starr Foundation has been making grants in China in a number of areas, including education, medicine and healthcare, humanitarian needs, public policy, culture and the environment.

In 2009, the foundation donated more than $3 million to the New York-based National Committee on United States-China Relations, a nonprofit organization that encourages understanding and cooperation between the US and China. Greenberg has always been working on improving the relationship between the two countries. "It is the most important relationship in the world," he said.

The Starr Foundation and Starr International Foundation in Switzerland also announced a joint grant of $1 million for earthquake relief in China in 2008.

In 2002, the foundation made a $2.55 million grant to Shanghai Children's Medical Center through Project Hope, which is a renovated children's hospital with the rank of "Grade 3, Class A", the highest standard in China. "When I visited the hospital as a member on the board of Project Hope, I was impressed by the quality of staff and the world-class institution," said Greenberg.

The foundation contributed to the cleanup of Suzhou Creek, the mother river of Shanghai, by donating $1.2 million for an oxygenation barge in 2001. The barge keeps pumping oxygen into the river to clean the water and re-establish a hospitable environment for all marine life, the same method the British government used to clean up the River Thames in London.

The Starr Foundation was established in 1955 by Cornelius Vander Starr. Upon his death in 1968 his estate was passed on to the foundation.

It currently has assets of approximately $1.25 billion, making it one of the largest private foundations in the United States.

Organizations in need of grants can send applications to Florence Davis, the president of the foundation, and provide a detailed plan of what they are applying for. The team in New York will review and investigate the plan to see if it is the right organization and if it meets certain standards. Then a board meeting will be held to decide if the foundation will make the grants. The process only takes three to four months.

"We have relationships all over the world. If we need background information on a particular grant, we can easily get it," said Greenberg.