New York City women ‘geh-t’ together to give big
The smallest piece of the pie, the least amount of visibility and little financial support are all terms that describe the Asian Pacific Islander nonprofit sector — but Hali Lee and her organization, the Asian Women Giving Circle, are working to change that.
Lee modeled the Giving Circle after the Korean geh, or shared savings circles where members (all women in Lee’s case) raise funds from their contacts and their own wallets for grant-making purposes. “Generally they’re social groups and you have fun,” said Lee, adding that her parents were in a geh in Kansas City and that she was in a geh in New York City. “You get together once a month for dinner or lunch, and then you put some money into a pot. A geh is a way to get seed money to start a business. I took the idea of a geh and added a philanthropic twist.”
In two years, the 20 women of New York City’s Asian Women Giving Circle have raised $130,000 for local Asian women who use the arts to further a social justice goal. More than 100 people put money into the pot last year, and now in their third cycle, they hope to see the same success.
The Asian Women Giving Circle is one of very few Asian American philanthropic groups and the only pan-Asian, all-women philanthropic group in the nation. “And I think one day we can grow to be a national Asian women organization,” Lee said.
Asian Americans are just beginning to flex their philanthropic muscle, fulfilling needs in the community left from the gap in national funding. According to a June 2007 study by the group, the Asian American Pacific Islander population has grown to comprise 4.5 percent of the U.S. population, yet 2004 foundation funding to APIs represented just 0.4 percent of all U.S. foundation dollars.
Asian American nonprofits and agencies suffer more acutely from lack of funding than other groups. For example, local AAPI-led organizations that stepped in to provide culturally competent services following hurricanes Katrina and Rita, particularly to the Vietnamese community, continue to have ongoing struggles to access funding, according to a recent study by Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy.
With less than 1 percent of all national philanthropic dollars going to Asian American Pacific Islander organizations, small local groups of Asian American donors like the Asian Women Giving Circle have a great impact on the fiscal health of the community.
“Really, it’s an empowerment track for us. It’s us raising our own money and deciding where that money should go,” said Peggy Saika, president/executive director of AAPIP, in a video about the group’s giving circle work on YouTube. “We must change the culture and the practice of giving in our communities.”
According to Jessica Chao, a consultant in program and institutional management planning and design for private foundations and nonprofits, “The most frequent answer to questions about why Asian Americans have given time or money is that giving is done out of a sense of duty and obligation to one’s family, community and society.” Informal giving is more related to close family and social circles for Asian Americans, Chao said.
Though giving circles are on the rise across the country, there is still no central fund for Asian Americans, and Asian American donors lack visibility. Part of this is because most Asian American donations — instead of going to high-visibility causes like museums or libraries — tend to help new immigrants transition successfully to living in the United States. Giving also stays insular within the specific ethnic community that the donor participates in most actively, such as Vietnamese or Chinese; pan-Asian American funds are rare.
Besides supporting Asian American women in the arts, Lee said one of the main impetuses behind the group was raising the visibility of Asian women doing philanthropic work. “Of the stereotypical images of women in the media, there is not one of being philanthropic and doing good,” Lee said. “Equally important to me is raising the visibility of Asian American women giving together.”
More information on the Asian Women Giving Circle is available at www.asianwomengivingcircle.org.
More information on AAPIP is available at www.aapip.org.
