Belinda Tanoto Joins the 25 Impactful Philanthropists in ASEAN

Belinda Tanoto, an Executive Committee Member of the Tanoto Foundation, was featured on “ASEAN Impact 25”, a catalog that contains compilations of impactful philanthropic ideas in Southeast Asia. This catalog was launched in conjunction with the ASEAN Philanthropy Dialogue event organized by the Asia Philanthropy Circle (APC) in Singapore on March 21 2018.

Belinda Tanoto is leading the Tanoto Foundation, a family philanthropy foundation founded by Sukanto Tanoto and Tinah Bingei Tanoto, into a new generation. In 1981, Sukanto Tanoto and Tinah Bingei Tanoto laid the foundations for philanthropic activities aimed at education, empowerment, and enhancement of quality of lives.

Currently, Belinda Tanoto leads the Tanoto Foundation as a representation of a younger philanthropic foundation and focuses on strategies to produce sustainable social impacts.

In 2017, the Tanoto family reviewed their philanthropic activities. The new strategy calls for more investment in human capital along the life cycle. In this regard, the Tanoto Foundation supports early childhood education and development by curbing the scale of stunting within Indonesia.

“Nine million children are stunted, which is an unacceptable number for a middle-income nation like Indonesia. It is a lost generation,” says Belinda Tanoto.

When the stunting issue surfaces and comes under the radar of the government, Belinda reacts in anticipation by becoming more active in this area.

Tanoto Foundation also seeks to enhance their relations with the government as part of their program development and expansion. “We always experiment with different approaches to a problem. Once we have a good model, we share it with the government to try and get them to replicate it,” Belinda Tanoto says.

Belinda also expresses her ambition to partner with 20,000 elementary schools in the next decade. She foresees new approaches to improving the quality of basic education, intensifying the support for early childhood, and harnessing data to measure impact more productively.

But according to Belinda, ambition falls short if not executed properly. In its bid to become a world-class philanthropic foundation, the Tanoto Foundation continues to leverage competent professionals to drive its vision and strategies forward.

To read the complete “ASEAN Impact 25” catalog, please click here.