Special Edition 10: Great Philanthropists - Sir Run Run Shaw, Philanthropy in All of Us
Welcome to another edition of "Around with Randall", your weekly podcast making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and Founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.
I want to thank you for joining me, Randall, here on this edition of the podcast, "Around with Randall." Today we jump back into our great philanthropist series. We're always looking for something a little bit different so that we are educating, finding new ways of learning from those that have been so generous to our world. And today we go to the far east and we talk for a few minutes here about Run Run Shaw who may be the greatest Chinese philanthropist in history, having given away given away before his death at age 107, billions and billions and billions of dollars to help education in China.
So who is this Shaw? Well, born in 1907, one of six boys in the family, was born on in mainland China and ended up moving to Shanghai with his family at early age and learning English at the YMCA school in Shanghai, but his resources, his immense wealth came from an early age, starting at about 17, in working with his brothers in the entertainment industry. And they started with films and became incredibly successful with films. In fact he is considered the Kung Fu king of cinema. He, over his career, developed more of a Kung Fu following and if you are one of those who enjoys those movies it's very very possible that Sir Shaw, having been knighted by the queen in 1977, was the producer and or owner of the studio who produced that film. He, over the course of time, built an empire with his brothers and Shaw Organization became the leader of production, eventually, in Hong Kong where they moved the facilities and most of the businesses just before World War II, and then subsequently thereafter underneath British rule for more freedom.
Eventually they jumped from films to television and at one point their co-founded TVB, which was the broadcast network, owned 80% of the market in Hong Kong. Think about that. Eighty percent of the market was watching one network that he owned. His company. He also was an award-winning director having won praise in 1962 at the Khan Film Festival for one of his films. So here is this person who has made an immense amount of wealth through the entertainment industry, and I think there's some things to take from this. And we'll talk about his philanthropy here in a second, but I think in the United States that we take for granted the idea of philanthropy because people like, certainly, Ben Franklin which we've highlighted on this podcast. But the work of John Rockefeller, which we certainly should talk about at some point, Andrew Carnegie, we should probably talk about at some point are individuals in American history and heritage. That kind of defined what philanthropy might be. Well, if you're in Hong Kong or you're growing up in China, philanthropy doesn't have the same meaning.
So what was it that got Run Run Shaw to think about the idea of giving away? So let's talk about what his philanthropy was and what we can learn from it, because that's the tactical piece. What is it that we can do with this information that could help our community or help our organization or help someone think about the way they view their philanthropy? So he looked at his philanthropy in several different ways, one of which was this idea of public-private collaboration, and we've talked about that with someone like Walter Scott earlier on in the Great Philanthropist series, that he, that these type of individuals are saying look philanthropy can carry the water certain distance but there has to be a greater group of people that are going to be engaged, whether that's governmental sources, private, other private sources, but it can't be just dependent on one sole contributor.
So he looked at that in several ways. Number one is is that when he gave money to education units, we'll talk about who those were here in a moment or two, he required them to raise three times the amount of money he gave. He also required, in terms of proposals that came to his foundation, that they had official backing from local governmental sources so that this endeavor, whatever it was, would have a longevity. That it wouldn't be just his gift, and nothing else that would come from it. He was also incredibly aware of the importance of education but not just to the top Chinese universities.
Sir Shaw gave an immense amount of money, billions of dollars, to trade schools too, as they are kind of considered secondary and third level universities because he felt as if the education that was being provided would really benefit those who were in attendance. So he looked at it from the standpoint of the the biggest, the the most successful, from a research perspective certainly are things I would. He gave too, but he gave so much to technical schools. We don't talk about that in America as much we think about educational units and and higher ed and we think of major universities and colleges, but frankly the number of people going to the, going to college is diminishing, and more and more people going into technical trades like heating and air conditioning, plumbing, electrical, critical, critical areas of our infrastructure, and in United States based economy. But we don't talk about that, philanthropies, all that often. Well, here's someone who was doing something in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s that maybe wasn't all that thought of here in the United States.
Eighty percent of the money he gave went to some type of school, specialty schools, technical institutions. Only 20 percent went to actual universities. So he was looking at dispersing wealth by educational opportunity in areas that most people don't even consider today. He also believed in rewarding excellence, but in doing so wanted to look at it a little bit differently. So he would, he found it.
If you think about China being a country that has a non-democracy government, founded this scholarship, graduate program to send Chinese students of who excelled to universities all over the world, from Harvard and Stanford to Cambridge and Oxford. And then wanted them to go back and help the Chinese people, government, society be better. And he collaborated with universities in South America and in India and in South Africa to better their engagement so he had a real worldwide perspective.
One of the last things he did was establish the Shaw Prize, and then we certainly I think know the Nobel Prize, which was funded in the late 1800s by the engineer and inventor, Nobel, who created, found, discovered dynamite and used that fortune to reward like the Nobel Peace Prize and mathematics and other things like that. Well there are Nobel prizes for certain sciences, but like astronomy and, which is I think more normalized in Nobel Prize becoming a Nobel Prize laureate but things like life sciences and uh pure mathematics stem really aren't as highlighted, and so he created this prize and it became known as the, and is known as the Nobel of the East. And he put an immense amount of money behind the winners of this so they could continue their research.
How much philanthropy did Run Run Shaw provide? I think, as we think about it in today's philanthropy the idea of stewardship, there are more than 5,000 buildings on educational campuses in China and in Hong Kong that have his name. Think about that. Carnegie. Carnegie gave and started the funding for many public libraries throughout the United States and I don't remember the exact number but it's hundreds and some of which have his name on it and justifiably. So five thousand plus buildings have his name on them. How much philanthropy do you have to do to have five thousand of anything named for you?
What I find most interesting, and unfortunately there's not a lot of research about this, is that what caused him to want to be a philanthropist. If you grow up in a semi-democratic state, if we think about China from 19 when he was born, what 1907 through you know at least through World War II, and sums may be a loose word. It's not a haven of philanthropy and free enterprise. And then the Chinese government after World War II really makes it a communist government, very, you know, just not philanthropy at the edges of everyone's tongue or lips when they speak. And yet here's someone who amassed billions and billions of dollars from Hong Kong before it became a back, was reverted back to a Chinese province, Chinese part of the mainland that in his heart. Wanted to make people's lives better. It's a reminder to me that philanthropy isn't just an educational thought, it's a heartfelt desire to want to help others.
Run Run Shaw found a way to do it through his monetary support or of different educational units, scholarships, the the Shaw Prize for inventive or creative or or new discovery. But frankly, it can be in anyone's heart by helping someone across the street or volunteering at your local grade school or being involved with your church.
I want to remember, and take away from this and hopefully for you as well that philanthropy doesn't have to be grandiose to be important. That even if you don't have the learned experience of what philanthropy is when you want to help someone else make a difference in a small way or a big way, that's the essence of philanthropy. It's the definition, love of mankind, love of humankind, wanting to make a difference even though did not have obviously a formal upbringing and understanding philanthropy, he found through his heart the willingness and the desire to want to change other people's lives. Now he had billions of dollars to do it, but I think it's a good lesson that there's a little philanthropy in all of us whether we're taught it or not. Question is, can we find it ourselves?
I really want to thank you for joining me in the shortened version of the Great Philanthropists. So Run Run Shaw philanthropy in every one of us. the question is, what we do with it? We'll look forward to seeing you back here next time on a regular edition, little education, learned opportunities, tactical things you can use right back here on "Around with Randall," don't forget you make it a great day.