Asia's wealthiest families tend to approach philanthropy the way they run their businesses: managing initiatives directly and tracking outputs closely, rather than simply writing checks. That is one of the central conclusions of a new report from the Bridgespan Group, a U.S.-based philanthropy advisory firm, released at the Philanthropy for Better Cities Forum in Hong Kong on Sept. 7.

The findings matter well beyond the nonprofit world: Asia is widely expected to see one of the largest intergenerational transfers of wealth in history over the coming decades, and how the region's first- and second-generation fortunes choose to give will shape the scale and direction of charitable funding across a region that is home to most of the world's population.

Asia's family fortunes remain younger than those elsewhere in the world. Roughly 94% of the Asian families Bridgespan studied are in their first or second generation of wealth, compared with 85% of families in high-income economies outside the region. A similar share still control the businesses that generated their wealth, versus 68% outside Asia.

That continued ownership shapes how Asian families give. Business-linked giving dominates the region, practiced by 95% of wealthy families in Asia's middle-income economies and 80% in its high-income ones. Elsewhere, just 28% of high-income families give through their businesses. Most Western families instead establish their own foundations—Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, for instance, chose to set up their own foundations rather than give through Microsoft or Berkshire Hathaway.

"The level of control that families expect to have over their giving—because they're still so used to having that level of control over the corporate—is definitely a lot more hands-on," says Gwendolyn Lim, head of Southeast Asia at Bridgespan and an author of the report.

She traces the habit back to the conglomerate era, when Asia's tycoons built sprawling groups by spotting "gaps in the market" and grew accustomed to running operations that had nothing to do with one another. When those families turned to philanthropy, they saw similar gaps—non-profits lacking the capacity to do good work, or governments unwilling to step in and act. The result was the "operating foundation" that both funds and manages charitable projects.

Western philanthropists, by contrast, are surrounded by mature civil-society organizations and are generally more content to deliver funding through grants. Bridgespan's report finds that families in middle-income countries are more likely to administer their own programs than those in higher-income countries.

Working with the state

More than three-quarters of Asian family philanthropies partner with government, versus 58% outside Asia.

That willingness to work with the state is distinctive, Lim says. Asian families are accustomed to dealing with ministries through their businesses, and therefore see few qualms about doing so again through their charities. Western donors, however, tend to be more wary of government involvement.

"If you talk to American or European philanthropists, working closely with the government is something that makes them nervous," she says. "Their faces change a little bit. They're like, 'Maybe we influence the government from an advocacy perspective.'"

Bridgespan's report notes that Asian families may fund pilot programs to prove a concept works before handing successful models over to the government to run at larger scale. Lim points out that philanthropic families are "usually standard bearers who are able to experiment a lot more."

Another difference: Asian philanthropists are more willing than their Western counterparts to report how much work they are doing, using metrics such as schools built or teachers trained. More than 80% of Asian families report their outputs, compared with 45% of families in high-income economies elsewhere.

Relatively few families, however—in Asia or anywhere else—report outcomes, meaning how things actually changed because of what an organization did. "They go: 'I don't want to pay you to measure outcomes, but I want you to report on outcomes.' That's pretty terrible," Lim admits.

The world's largest givers

This week, Bridgespan also updated its rankings of the world's largest corporate and institutional givers, based on average annual giving between 2020 and 2024.

The Hong Kong Jockey Club, the city's only authorized betting operator, tops Asia's corporate rankings at $774 million a year, ahead of Tencent at $404 million.

Globally, the Jockey Club is the only Asian entity in the corporate top 10, ranking No. 8—behind Deutsche Telekom and well behind Johnson & Johnson, the world's largest corporate giver at $3.8 billion a year.

Much of the Jockey Club's money flows through the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. The Trust gave an average of $705 million a year between 2020 and 2024, placing it first among Asian philanthropic organizations but just short of the global top 10. The Gates Foundation leads all institutional funders at $6.5 billion per year.

The top 20 Asian philanthropies collectively gave $2.7 billion annually; the global top 20 gave $21.4 billion.

Both reports were commissioned by Bridgespan's Funders' Council—whose members include the Institute of Philanthropy, the Gates Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation—and were released at the Philanthropy for Better Cities Forum, organized by the Jockey Club.

The first line of risk

According to AVPN, a network of Asia-based social investors, the region faces a development funding shortfall of $26 trillion through 2030. Filling that gap will be a tall order.

"We call philanthropy the first line of risk," Lim says. "Philanthropic giving fills the spots where corporates may be too nervous to invest. And family philanthropy is even more at the vanguard of giving."

Yet the gap Asian philanthropy is being asked to fill keeps growing. The Trump administration's dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development canceled roughly 83% of the agency's programs, gutting development budgets in a region where USAID once spent about $860 million a year; in Indonesia and the Philippines, program values fell by 95% or more. Aid financing to Southeast Asia could drop by more than $2 billion, according to estimates from the Lowy Institute.

Nobody, Lim concedes, can plug the hole left by Washington. "Governments can't fill the gap. Philanthropy can't fill the gap. There's not enough money," she says.

Still, in the "Asian decade," the region's philanthropists will need to find some way to pick up the slack. "This is the decade where our own people have to help our own people," she says.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com