Elaine Chow is managing partner of Trinity Capital, a single family office in Hong Kong. When Michael Macfarlane asks why she gives time and resources to the wider family office conversation, when many offices prefer to keep to themselves, she answers in terms of faith and stewardship. Her practical answer is a series of small gatherings where families learn to examine philanthropy with the same discipline they apply to investments.

An inheritance of stewardship

Chow's philosophy begins with her grandfather. He did infrastructure work in China, was briefly exiled to Singapore in the 1920s, where he taught, and after the war brought the family to Hong Kong through considerable hardship. He had a large family to support, including his siblings and his wife's family, and was, in Chow's description, a very good steward of resources. He also started a school for people of very little means, charging only a nominal fee.

That example shapes how her family thinks about surplus.

So we believe that whatever we accumulated in the past that has extra should be shared to the community.

— Elaine Chow, Wealth Office

She is careful about the framing. The disparity between rich and poor, she says, is a global economic phenomenon, and she has no wish to shame the rich or discriminate against the poor. The task, as she sees it, is to provide good infrastructure or an ecosystem that allows people to develop into talent regardless of their means.

She also places this within her faith. She believes in God as the creator of all things and sees people as stewards of what they have been given, including community, friendships and family relationships. Looking outwards instead of at oneself is, in her view, what brings the peace, harmony and kindness most people crave.

The problem of too many causes

The practical difficulty for any family with resources is choice. Chow observes that many philanthropies and NGOs are, in her phrase, waving at you. The question is how to tell which ones make good use of their funds.

Her response, developed with a business partner she describes as a champion of philanthropy, is a series of fireside chats. The first focused on illiteracy and brought together eight to ten family offices. The format is modelled on a Jeffersonian dinner, intimate and centred on a single issue. Further topics include human trafficking, disadvantaged youth, children with special needs, and the elderly and ageing population. NGOs that have been vetted are showcased, and the families discuss how the work is done.

It's like dissecting a company doing due diligence, but you do it for the philanthropy organisations.

— Elaine Chow, Wealth Office

This approach treats philanthropy as something that can be examined, compared and improved. It also turns giving into a shared learning exercise among peers. Chow is part of a Chinese University editorial committee, made up of next-generation family members and professionals, that discusses how family offices work and how they may evolve. The fireside chats extend that habit of peer learning into philanthropy.

A vehicle for every family member

Chow's view of philanthropy is linked to a broader idea about what a family office is for. In the Chinese context, she says, everyone in the family works for the family business. Some family members simply have no interest in it, and it does not motivate them to get up in the morning.

A family office can give them another route. Chow describes creating extra vehicles for family members to pursue what they are passionate about, for example caring for sick people or fundraising for hospitals, and inviting volunteers to support those causes. Business families, she notes, have human resources and very good connections through their own peers and their parents' peers. Used well, that network can influence a whole community to do good.

Macfarlane connects this to a shift he observes in the next generation, who increasingly look for impact through businesses and technologies as well as through donations. Chow agrees, and her suggestions are concrete. She proposes that a principal allocate 100,000 to 500,000 to teenagers to direct into philanthropy or into investments they choose, and ask them to present the results. In adulthood, perhaps between 25 and 30, the sum might rise to between one and five million.

And what we want the next generation to look at wealth is not as owners, but also stewards.

— Elaine Chow, Wealth Office

Her reasoning is that parents cannot know which tools their children will need in a world that may be foreign to them. Giving them resources, concepts and room to explore is, in her view, how families avoid wealth being squandered.

No single recipe

Asked whether the next generation should sign cheques, start foundations, bring more purpose into existing businesses or become impact entrepreneurs, Chow declines to choose. Each child, she says, is gifted in different ways. Building a business takes a lot of hard work, so a child without that passion should pursue the subject or field they care about, using the family's resources to build a better ecosystem around it. Her advice to patriarchs and business owners is to identify early whether children are suited to entrepreneurship or investing, groom them accordingly and involve them in business meetings.

She adds a demographic point. In her view the world needs more children, so that families can produce a variety of philanthropists, entrepreneurs and legacy builders.

The common thread is that, in Chow's account, philanthropy sits inside the family office's core purpose. It is part of how a family develops its people, connects with its peers and meets what she regards as a moral responsibility. Treating giving with the rigour of an investment is how she keeps that responsibility practical.