Reversal of fortunes

Indian-born philanthropists have impact from US to native land

Earlier this month, in a ballroom in the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge decorated with calla lilies and glittering fabric, hundreds of Indian-born immigrants in tuxedos and saris paid $500 a seat to listen to the plight of rickshaw drivers in the land of their birth.

Most of the attendees now live in Greater Boston. By the end of the night, they had raised about $275,000 to help drivers buy their own vehicles.

The American India Foundation, which hosted the second annual gala, is buoyed by the wave of Indians who came to the United States to seek education and often stayed to make a lot of money. A host of India-based philanthropies have sprung up around Boston, including the Akshaya Patra Foundation, which feeds nearly 1 million schoolchildren in India and opened its US office in Stoneham less than two years ago. In September, Akshaya Patra raised $750,000 at its annual fund-raiser.

Two years ago, the Prashant H. Fadia Foundation in Burlington and the Deshpande Foundation in Stoneham donated $500,000 to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, allowing the museum to triple its gallery space for Indian art. And the Desai Family Foundation, also in Burlington, has donated large amounts of money to causes here and in India.

"As people become financially successful, there is a desire to give back, both in the United States and in India," said Raj Sharma, a private wealth adviser and senior vice president at Merrill Lynch and a cochair of the American India Foundation fund-raiser. "India is a land of a million causes. It's got great riches. It's got great glamour. It's also got grinding poverty."

Many Indians who moved to the United States in the last few decades came here to study, and got into American universities by ranking at the top of their classes and already leading in their professional fields, Sharma said. Now, those Indians have made money in their careers and want to give back, he said.

Of American residents born outside the country, Indian-born immigrants are both the most highly educated and have the highest median household income of any national group.

"I can introduce you to 50 people who have taken companies public and made a lot of money," said Vinod Sahney of Concord, a senior vice president at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, as he looked around the room at the American India Foundation fund-raiser.

Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande, one of the area's best-known Indian entrepreneurs, is one of the forces driving the burgeoning new philanthropies. He created the Deshpande Foundation, which gives grants to groups, including many that work in India, with innovative projects.

Deshpande also brought Akshaya Patra to America, giving the foundation free office space, after he was impressed by the group's work in India.

Akshaya Patra is the world's largest nongovernmental organization that provides a midday meal to children. The group, which started in 2000 in Bangalore, feeds children at school to encourage them to continue their education.

"Organizations like these are coming up because there is a whole new level of passion for philanthropy among South Asian people who are here," said Geetha Ramamurthy, a senior vice president at Venus Capital Management Inc.

While much of the money raised is sent back to India, local philanthropies are also supporting Indian art in the United States. In the past few years, these gifts have allowed the Peabody Essex Museum to multiply its gallery space devoted to Indian art and also supported the publishing of two recent books on Indian art and furniture, as well as Indian programming and exhibits at the museum.

"It's been tremendous," said Susan Bean, the museum's curator of South Asian and Korean art. "These US-based Indian philanthropic foundations have begun just in recent years to support projects at American art museums, mostly for the support of the display of Indian art."

Prashant H. Fadia, president and CEO of Abacus Software Group in Burlington, died in 2005, at the age of 52. His wife, Saluni, is now director of the foundation named after him.

Not only are more Indian-Americans donating to charitable causes, but the group of those considered large donors is growing, Ramamurthy said.

Kathleen Burge can be reached at kburge@globe.com.