As fiscal pressures intensify and official aid budgets tighten, Asian governments face a growing development-financing gap. Diaspora donors are eager to help fill it, but information barriers, regulatory complexity, and trust deficits prevent their generous intentions from materialising into impact.
The rapid shrinking of overseas development assistance to Asia is shifting the financing landscape. In Southeast Asia alone, overseas development assistance is expected to fall by more than US$2 billion in 2026.
Meanwhile, fiscal pressures in many countries such as Malaysia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka are rising as development challenges—from climate change to access to education and healthcare—persist.
Diaspora philanthropy can help alleviate these stressors. It can mobilise flexible, relationship-driven capital and connect it to trusted local actors. Yet many diaspora donors who are ready to contribute find that turning intent into impact is rarely straightforward. Why?
In theory, converting private loyalty into a public good should be easy; diaspora communities, after all, already send money, expertise, and attention back to places they still call home. But in practice, many would-be donors in Asia are unclear about how to give. They cite regulatory uncertainty and complexity around cross-border donations, and struggle to find formal channels linked to trusted organisations on the ground.
The pervasive constraint is not willingness. Wanting to give is a question of motivation; being able to give is a question of infrastructure.
The missing architecture
A new Centre for Asian Philanthropy and Society (CAPS) report traces how these frictions play out for diaspora donors trying to support causes in China, India, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Across the four countries, it describes how governments have built diaspora-engagement apparatuses for remittances, investment, and talent return. But philanthropy has been largely overlooked.
For a donor in London, Los Angeles, or Dubai, it is the practical questions that are often the most difficult to answer:
- How do I give to an organisation I trust?
- How to I ensure my giving complies with the rules of my home and host country?
- How can I be confident that the money will arrive and be used well?
Perceived risks of non-compliance concern donors
On the second of these, when giving back home, diaspora donors regularly face complex and tight regulations governing overseas charitable giving. Donations from members of the Indian diaspora who do not hold an Indian passport are governed by the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), and in China, donations channelled through overseas-registered nonprofits, including those established by members of the diaspora, are governed by the Overseas NGO Management Law.
Meanwhile, recipient organisations also face burdens of their own, having to comply with domestic regulations governing foreign funding, foreign exchange, and reporting requirements. In Vietnam, for example, local organisations must complete multiple layers of approvals at the provincial and national level to receive foreign donations, even from the diaspora.
This dual regulatory exposure can increase the effort, cost, and perceived risk among potential givers. This is particularly relevant when diaspora members have close familial and business links to their home country. When faced with red tape and oft-changing regulations, the perceived consequences of non-compliance and potential penalties defer to reputation, despite the underlying desire to give.
Intermediaries as a bridge
In response to these challenges, intermediary organisations—third-party entities that help diaspora donors navigate regulations and local organisations—have emerged as critical actors. This is particularly true for more ‘casual’ givers, or those lacking an established giving infrastructure such as a personal foundation or family office.
These intermediaries can take the form of international organisations that direct resources to local nonprofits, organisations that emerge from the diaspora community itself, or overseas branches of a local nonprofit.
As well as support in compliance, such intermediaries, such as Dasra, Myriad USA, and WHEELS Global Foundation, can verify the registration, financials, and governance of recipient organisations, and direct donors to organisations they might not otherwise have identified or reached.
Some also amplify the scale of diaspora philanthropy by organising structured giving events. For example, the US-based India Philanthropy Alliance hosts the India Giving Day, which raised US$8.8 million from nearly 2,700 donors in 2025.
Meanwhile, intermediaries operating as charities in the host country (e.g. 501(c)3 in the US) allow tax deductions for diaspora donors who donate back home—tax deductions that they would not otherwise qualify for.
Together, these functions reduce the transaction costs that make one-off giving feel too burdensome to repeat.
Ways forward
With this landscape in mind, there is considerable scope for increasing diaspora philanthropic giving if supportive policy and regulatory pathways are developed. This could be achieved in several ways:
(Although these recommendations are based on diaspora philanthropic giving in Asia’s geopolitical context, some are applicable globally in developing countries with large diaspora communities and supportive environments.)
1. Diaspora philanthropy should be a core pillar of diaspora engagement. Governments have long treated diaspora giving as an afterthought to be activated only during crises. As such, philanthropy has largely remained absent from official diaspora strategies that already promote remittances and investment. This leaves many willing donors unsure about how and where their giving could fit.
2. Governments could create clear and compliant channels for giving. These can take the form of endorsed platforms, pre-approved funds, or coordinated government-nonprofit mechanisms. Endorsed platforms aid in fraud prevention by reducing exposure to scams or unverified actors. Pre-approved funds lend legitimacy to intermediaries and reduce the hassle for donors to research each organisation independently. And coordinated government-nonprofit mechanisms could reinforce transparency and accountability between the two so that diaspora donors have a way to give without having to navigate the rules themselves.
These measures create regulatory consistency and minimise the administrative and resource burden inherent in compliance. A balance needs to be struck, though, between facilitating diaspora funds through these compliant channels, and not using such channels to limit funds’ reach certain social sector organisations.
3. Governments could harness the expertise of the diaspora community. A community that has demonstrated a willingness to support development efforts back home is likely to also contribute in ways beyond the financial. This may be through professional expertise, sectoral networks, and direct knowledge of local contexts that outsiders aren’t privy to. If those strengths are put to work through mentorship, technical assistance, or skill-based volunteering, real, tangible impacts within home communities can materialise, even if formal giving feels elusive.
For example, the Philippine Development Foundation (PhilDev) engages the global Filipino community in volunteer and mentorship programmes that upskill young Filipinos in STEM fields. Similarly, in Vietnam, the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation runs student volunteer programmes at home and abroad, connecting younger diaspora members to its anti-trafficking work. These intentional forms of contribution are harder to quantify but are no less valuable.
The question with each of these will be how governments that wish to leverage the immense value of diaspora philanthropy for the social sector, choose to engage and when.
Complementary capital
As detailed in the CAPS report, there is a critical need for practical measures to offer clear, trusted channels for diaspora giving. That way, donors do not have to navigate complexity alone. And that matters: the development finance landscape is evolving, and diaspora philanthropy is moving to the fore as a complementary source of capital.
To keep pace, governments and institutions need to create enabling environments that balance oversight with accessibility—and diaspora giving must be kept in the equation.
This article was first published in Alliance Magazine and was co-authored by Shan Sontra, a Research Associate at the Centre for Asian Philanthropy and Society (CAPS).