In a recent dialogue hosted by Asia Philanthropy Circle (APC) and Asia Community Foundation (ACF), Dr. Peter Wuffli, founder of the elea Foundation for Ethics in Globalization, shared his vision for philanthropic impact investing with an intimate audience, including the Chairman of Li Foundation, Lionel.
Peter emphasized that wealth carries responsibility. Classic liberalism, he noted, is about protecting individual liberty, but freedom must be paired with ethical action. For Peter, the role of philanthropy is to empower communities sustainably, rather than imposing solutions from the outside. This principle informs elea’s approach, where entrepreneurs, rather than traditional, short-lived aid projects, become the drivers of change from the bottom up.
This belief led him to found the elea Foundation for Globalisation and Ethics in 2006, a global pioneer in philanthropic impact investing. elea invests hundreds of thousands (USD) per project within Global South regions like Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and combines financial backing with hands-on guidance on the company’s strategy, governance, and crisis management capacity. Its innovative evaluation model, the elea Impact Measurement Methodology (eIMM), tracks a project’s impact in terms of reach and intensity.
Peter also shared insights on how his team selects and supports social enterprises. Instead of merely looking at their business model, he and his staff seek to understand the entrepreneur as a whole person, looking into each candidate’s family background, personal philosophies, and role models. When it comes to board governance, Peter advocates for small boards with a mix of personalities and emphasises leadership development and succession planning in teams for long-term sustainability.
From his early exposure to the banking sector to managing UBS as the Group CEO to founding elea to groom small but impactful start-ups, Peter’s message was clear: sustainable philanthropy thrives where capital meets strategy, ethics, and entrepreneurship rooted in the local community.
Li Foundation is proud to be supporting elea, APC, and ACF in introducing the Philanthropic Investing Collective, a three-year learning program for new and seasoned philanthropists to gain an immersive understanding of philanthropic impact investing and the Southeast Asian social entrepreneurship landscape. The program will offer participants workshops, site visits, and a community of peers to journey with while gaining hands-on experience in philanthropic impact investing through the Investing in Entrepreneurs for Impact Fund managed by ACF.
The book showcases how the participants challenged their limits and conquered the World Marathon Challenge and North Pole Marathon to inspire people to challenge their own limits and pursue their dreams boldly.
The book tells the stories behind the event which saw the largest number of people in history running 1045km round Taiwan in 19 days.