--- description: Find out who else is on the TIME100 Most Influential People in Philanthropy 2026 list. title: TIME100 Philanthropy: Laurence Lien image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfc9d54a037f7c4d1/69fe488fe724f450eb634760/t100-philanthropy-Laurence_Lien.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9%2Coffset-x0.00%2Coffset-y3.86 --- May 14, 2026 # Laurence Lien Radical giving by [Charlie Campbell](/author/charlie-campbell/) ## Charlie Campbell Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Editor at Large  Courtesy Asia Philanthropy Circle The grandson of a Singaporean banking tycoon, Laurence Lien is a third-generation steward of one of the island nation’s most venerable family foundations. His “radical philanthropy” strategy is straightforward: highlight a gap in public goods, pilot a remedy, then allow state institutions to take over. A ranking that he funded of preschool provisions across 45 countries helped spur Singapore into a fourfold spending increase; a palliative-care index triggered its first national end-of-life strategy. In 2015, Lien co-founded the [Asia Philanthropy Circle](https://asiaphilanthropycircle.org/ "undefined"), a network of over 60 philanthropists across 13 markets. In 2023, he launched the [Asia Community Foundation](https://www.asiacf.org/ "undefined"), which is designed to channel Singapore’s vast family-office wealth toward charity. Lien’s efforts helped Singapore rise 19 places to third on the World Giving Index in 2024. And last year, as the [collapse of Western aid](https://time.com/7341644/humanitarian-aid-global-crisis-2025/ "undefined") led to an estimated $275 million shortfall across 20 Asian countries, Lien’s mission statement swelled. His response was to encourage Asia to stop mourning foreign aid and start funding its own development. That year, he also launched Asia Climate Philanthropy Advisory, the first regional climate-giving platform led from Asia. “There are some people where philanthropy is more about legacy, feeling good,” Lien tells TIME. “For me, it is really about making the greatest difference on the ground.” **How do you define radical philanthropy?** We started using this term more than 20 years ago. Then “radical” had a couple of meanings. One is getting to the root cause of problems. Rather than just looking at the surface and dealing with symptoms, what are the structural and systemic issues that cause a problem or suffering to arise? And the other aspect is around innovation. Our approach is: Has this been done before? Is anyone paying attention to it? If there’s a real gap and people are not paying attention, or if it is an area that needs new ways of thinking and doing things, then that’s where we play. **It seems your foundation relies on your own research to find gaps in public goods.** That’s one approach. We do invest in research, but it’s not always the starting point. My team is on the ground talking to practitioners, people working in the areas that we’re interested in, and they surface a lot of gaps. Quite often it’s multidisciplinary work. Particularly in a place like Singapore, the government does a pretty good job in most things. But sometimes it’s lacking when a person crosses different disciplines, like health care and social services. We are entering a phase where health needs to be a lot more in the community, and the foundation is very much in that space. **Your work also focuses on both society’s youngest and oldest.** We did the Quality of Death Index, which looked at palliative care among different countries, and then the Starting Well Index, and that sparks conversations and brings attention. When the Starting Well index came out, the Singapore government did respond. I’m sure it was not just our work, but I think we did contribute. And investment in early childhood development immediately went up, to \[the point\] that we have wound down our work in the early education space, because we believe we have moved the needle already quite significantly. **Do you feel that the culture behind philanthropy is shifting across Asia and people of means are more likely to give back to communities?** The reason why I started the Asian Philanthropy Circle is because I do believe that Asia is rising in philanthropy. Are Asian families doing enough? I still don’t think so. Philanthropy is not an area where people change their behaviors too quickly. But the trajectory is positive. Part of our work is bringing these people to the table and trying to work with one another to grow our impact, to learn from one another, inspire one another, and do more. But one of the issues that we face is that governments don’t naturally know how to work with civil society and foundations. In many countries around us the nonprofit sector tends to be underdeveloped. Singapore tends to be a bit of an exception. **Foreign NGOs had been leading the way across Asia, and then last year we saw the drawdown of USAID, while a lot of European governments have also pulled back on their donor work. Has this spurred a new sense of self-reliance?** The nature of giving in Asia still tends to be fairly traditional and community-based. Asians tend to give to people who are closer to them. Giving to strangers very far away is still not that common. For whatever reasons, the Trump Administration did not believe [USAID](https://time.com/7298994/usaid-deaths-studies-estimates-foreign-aid-hiv-aids-malaria-sudan/ "undefined") was impactful. But they were funding some of the hardest areas to fund, talking about health clinics on the Thailand-Myanmar border serving refugees, for example. To some extent, Asian funders are stepping up, but it’s not sufficiently filling the gap. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collection/time100-philanthropy/2026/laurence-lien/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collection/time100-philanthropy/2026/laurence-lien/"},"headline":"Laurence Lien","datePublished":"2026-05-14T12:02:12.288Z","dateModified":"2026-05-14T12:02:12.467Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collection/time100-philanthropy/2026/laurence-lien/","keywords":["list","franchise","Accolades","Magazine","Philanthropy 2026"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfc9d54a037f7c4d1/69fe488fe724f450eb634760/t100-philanthropy-Laurence_Lien.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675%2Coffset-x0.00%2Coffset-y3.86&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Charlie Campbell","jobTitle":"Editor at Large","url":"https://time.com/author/charlie-campbell/"}],"creator":"Charlie Campbell","articleSection":"TIME100","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfc9d54a037f7c4d1/69fe488fe724f450eb634760/t100-philanthropy-Laurence_Lien.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675%2Coffset-x0.00%2Coffset-y3.86&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/time100/","name":"TIME100"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collection/time100-philanthropy/2026/laurence-lien/","name":"Laurence Lien"}}]}] ```