1. Li Ka-shing
Hong Kong’s richest person is also its most generous giver, having set up the Li Ka Shing Foundation in 1980 with the aim of donating a third of his assets to it. Li’s biggest focus is education: he funded the founding of Shantou University, as well as giving to other educational institutions including the University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Cambridge, UC Berkeley and Stanford.
Disaster relief donations have included US$3m after 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and HK$30m after 2008 Sichuan earthquake; while a mammoth HK$1.7bn paid to build the Tsz Shan Monastery in Tai Po.
See Li Ka-shing's profile on the Tatler 500 list.