Every year, a great deal of money is given in the name of education. Universities name buildings after donors, foundations launch new programmes and families set up bursaries in memory of someone they loved. Much of it does real good. Yet the question of what makes educational philanthropy genuinely effective gets far less attention than the size of the gift.
The William S.D. Louey Educational Foundation has been living with that question since 1995. Over three decades, it has supported 35 scholars with more than HK$60 million, helping academically strong students from modest backgrounds in mainland China and Hong Kong study at universities including Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London and MIT. What follows are some of the lessons that experience has taught.
Why educational philanthropy matters
Talent is spread widely. Opportunity is not. The OECD’s 2018 report A Broken Social Elevator? How to Promote Social Mobility found that in an average OECD country it can take four to five generations for children from the poorest tenth of families to reach average earnings. Only around one in ten people whose parents had a low level of education go on to university, compared with about two in three of those whose parents were highly educated.
Governments carry most of the responsibility for changing those numbers. Philanthropy can still do things that public systems find difficult. It can back an individual student early, take a chance on an unfamiliar path and stay involved for many years after the fees are paid. Done well, it can shorten the distance between where a young person starts and where they are able to go.
A foundation that began with family
William Louey, a fourth-generation member of the family behind Kowloon Motor Bus, founded the Foundation in honour of his grandfather, William Sui-tak Louey. Much of his thinking about giving came from his grandmother, who helped people quietly and without looking for recognition. He talked about that influence in a conversation with Bernard Leong on Analyse Asia.
In 1995, William hand-picked the first group of scholars himself. It was a leap of faith on both sides. As Charlie Gao Feng, one of those early students, has recalled, choosing a relatively unknown route abroad over China’s established universities was a real risk at the time.
Lesson one: choose people, not only results
Strong grades open the door, but they are rarely what makes a scholarship succeed. From the beginning, William looked for determination and the ability to adapt to unfamiliar surroundings, alongside confidence, fresh ideas and maturity. For a student leaving home to begin a degree on the other side of the world, those qualities can matter as much as academic talent. We wrote more about this in what we look for when we interview a scholar.
Good educational philanthropy also listens to the people closest to the student. Marty Sun first heard about the scholarship through one of his Cambridge professors, who knew William and recognised both Marty’s potential and his financial need. The Foundation stepped in to supplement the support he was already receiving from the Cambridge Overseas Trust.
Lesson two: give time as well as money
The Foundation chose to help a small number of students deeply rather than many students from a distance. That meant mentorship, advice and staying in touch long after graduation. William still maintains close relationships with past scholars, many of whom describe the Foundation as something closer to a family than a funder. He has written about this approach for The CEO Magazine, arguing that good philanthropy involves far more than writing a cheque.
The same commitment has shaped his wider work in education. In 1999 he joined the committee of the China Oxford Scholarship Fund, which supports students from China studying at Oxford, and between 2003 and 2012 he served on the executive committee of The Friends of Cambridge University in Hong Kong.
Lesson three: build in the multiplier
The one thing William asks of his scholars in return is simple: when you are able to, help someone else. It is a philosophy rather than a contract, and it has taken root. In 2015, a group of former scholars established the Pay It Forward Scholarship to help Chinese students gain access to higher education.
Individual scholars have carried the idea further still. Anna Jin Xiang Zhao, a Cambridge engineering graduate who became a financier in Hong Kong, set up the Wang Family Foundation with her husband. Yangyang Hou, one of the very first recipients and now a strategist at J.P. Morgan, is among the many alumni who continue to support the next generation. You can read more of their journeys in our Scholar Stories.
Lesson four: measure what lasts
Scholarships are usually judged by graduation rates, first jobs and early salaries. Those measures matter, but they say little about what happens over a lifetime. As we explored in What Do We Really Know About the Impact of Scholarships?, very little research follows recipients for decades.
The Foundation’s white paper, The William Louey Effect, set out to look at that longer view through a 30-year study of its own scholars. Every respondent said their education had enabled them to support their families financially, and every respondent volunteers time in education, community or non-profit work. 92% have held leadership or decision-making roles, 92% mentor young people and 67% support scholarship programmes or give philanthropically themselves. The analysis also suggests that parental income was around 46% less predictive of adult earnings among scholars than in the wider Chinese population.
This is a focused case study of one small group, and it is presented as such. Its value lies in showing what becomes visible when a funder keeps asking about outcomes long after the original gift.
What this means for anyone thinking about giving
Effective educational philanthropy does not require a vast endowment. It asks for patience, judgement and a willingness to stay involved. Choose people carefully, support them over years rather than terms, encourage them to help others when they can, and measure success across a lifetime. Thirty years on, the Foundation’s experience suggests that one well-placed opportunity can change the course of a life, and that a changed life often goes on to create opportunities for many more.