'India has highest percentage of HNWIs wanting to give back to society'

According to the World Wealth Report 2014, these individuals want to donate to health, education and children's causes

India has the highest share of super-rich people globally who want to make a positive impact on society by giving back to their local communities in areas like health, education and children's causes, a report says.

According to the World Wealth Report 2014, released by Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management, more than 90% of India's High Net-Worth Individuals (HNWIs) seek to achieve more than just monetary returns while managing their wealth.

In India, 90.5% of HNWIs viewed driving social impact as either extremely or very important, followed by China (89.4%) and Indonesia (89.2%) in the second and third place respectively. Hong Kong (82.1%) and Malaysia (81.1%) round out the top five.

Mexico (77.1%), Brazil (76.4%), Russia (71.8%), Singapore (70.1%) and South Africa (68.1%) make it to the the top 10.

Super-rich people in Western nations like Italy (66%), Germany (63.4%), the UK (60.2%) and the US (56%) also show propensity to drive social impact.

HNWIs are those who have atleast $1 million in investable wealth.

Globally, a vast majority (92%) of HNWIs feel that investing their time, money or expertise to make a positive social impact is important to them, with 61% describing it as very or extremely important.

HNWIs are looking to firms to play a greater role in supporting their social impact objectives, the report said.

The report further said more HNWIs between $10 million and USD 20 million rate it as extremely or very important (74.3%), compared to those with between $5 million and $10 million (68.5%) and those with more than $20 million (62.0%).

Health, education, and children's causes are top priorities for HNWIs. About one-third of HNWIs currently allocate resources toward each.

Health, witnessed higher allocations from HNWIs who were over 60 years of compared to their younger counterparts who are under 40.

Education emerged as the second most important priority for HNWIs overall. In particular, 35.3% of those over 60 deemed education as a top priority.

The welfare of older people also attracts a significant amount of HNWI attention, with 23.9% allocating resources toward it, making it fourth on the list of causes.

Age also plays a strong role in the desire of HNWIs to strive for social good.

While 75% of those under-40 cite driving social impact as either extremely important or very important, the tendency declines about 10% with each age segment, reaching a low of 45.4% for those 60 and older.