University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

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Given these generous government incentives, it is no surprise that corporate
philanthropy towards educational institutions in Singapore has been on a growth
trend in recent years. It makes perfect sense for organizations to direct corporate
philanthropy towards educational institutions as the Singapore Government matches
dollar for dollar, all donations made by individuals and organizations. This
effectively doubles the overall value of the donation to the educational institution and
also enhances the reputation effect for the organization and enhances its corporate
image. For FY2007/2008, NUS received a total of US$74,555,900 in donations
(NUS Annual Report 2008), while NTU received a total of US$42,365,391 in
donations for FY2006/2007 (NTU Annual Report 2007). SMU received the lowest
with donations amounting to US$19,982,725 for FY2007/2008 (SMU Report to
Stakeholders 2008).
In practicing corporate giving and engaging in social responsible marketing practices,
corporations enhance their image and reputation amongst these universities.
Endowments and scholarships benefit top talents which in turn provide good
publicity for the corporation. As mentioned earlier, universities are a huge market in
themselves and also producers of potential employees and also consumers for
corporations. Take the example of the National University of Singapore. Based on
2008 figures, the total population of students (undergraduate/postgraduate/research),
faculty and staff, is just over 40,000. This figure does not include the university’s
alumni which have been listed as another 186,000, which would include many in
overseas markets (NUS Annual Report 2008).
In the recent 2008 Individual Giving Survey by the NVPC, it was revealed that only
27% of the respondents indicated that they had donated money towards the education
sector (See Fig. 1). This ranks “Education” as fifth on the list of types of
organizations receiving donations. The same survey also reported that the average
donation amount for individuals has also increased to US$200 from US$83 in 2006.
In addition, 21% of those surveyed indicated that they will continue to give in the
next twelve months (i.e 2009). Given the current and expected economic climate, it
seems unlikely that this scenario will actually happen. In the US, university
endowment funds and other donor-funded investments have suffered with the stock
market and corporations have become a smaller piece of the philanthropic pie at local
colleges and universities (Halcom & Asci 2008) Harvard University had reported a
loss of 12% on its US stock portfolio and 12.1% on its foreign equity portfolio last
year (Siow 2008). In Singapore, it was reported that Singapore university
endowment funds are also struggling to cope with the financial meltdown and credit
crises. However, in the case of the local universities, endowment investing is not
widely practiced and not all funds have been committed. Hence, this has provided
some protection from the financial turmoil (Siow 2008).
With the impending decline in philanthropic donations from the corporate sector,
there may be a need for the Singapore government to step-in and increase funding to
universities. The current 2009 budget does not address this (Budget Speech 2009),
but eventually there may be a need for the government to reassess its budget
provisions for tertiary education. With corporations reporting losses, tax deductions
will have little effect. The government may need to consider reinstating the S$3 for