About RICE
The RICE fund started in 2006, by a small group enthusiastic people from the Asian hedge fund world. Their vision was to share the success of their industry, supporting children’s, and educational, projects within the region that had created their success. Since September 2010 RICE has been registered as an International Charitable Organization (ICO) in Singapore.
What do we do?
We provide financial support and advice to organizations throughout Asia, working with children and education. We have a due diligence process in place to ensure our funding is well-targetted, efficiently deployed, with accountability.
What do we stand for?
Our aim is to improve the quality of life of the children we reach, to give them access to the fundamentals for living and the opportunities the region offers: shelter, healthcare, education and access. We are committed to ensuring that all donations we receive are spent directly for the benefit of children who are in need – no donation is ever spent on running our organisation. We seek to maximize the value of its investments by prioritizing those projects which have the most difficulties securing funding, perhaps because they’ve just started, or because they are working with specific groups that are less cosmetically attractive, or groups that are socially marginalised. We often invest in the less visible parts of these projects (capacity building, staffing, overhead etc) as the “infrastructure” of a project is core to its success, but often not glamorous or easy to fund. We aim to develop long term relationships with both the individuals providing services to children and with other like-minded donors.
How do we do it?
We raise funds from individuals and companies in the alternative investment management community in Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo. We also offer “tailor made services”, advising companies that have a specific funding idea in mind and assisting with project selection, due diligence, and monitoring. Besides supporting organizations financially, we also provide other support on request. We liaise with a broad universe of charities, funding agencies, and other organizations around the region. A small board allows for swift decision-making, and a network of committees of outstanding industry professionals facilitates effective implementation. We employ a full-time philanthropic analyst with long experience as a third sector professional, based in Singapore.
Who can apply for funding?
Organizations throughout Asia working with children or education can apply, as long as they are non-religious and non-political. We prefer to work with local NGO’s on a grassroots level.
Need funding?
Please contact Tessa at tessaboudrie@thericefund.org.
Click here to see our teams.