Legendary Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan was also among those to receive a Crystal Award.

Li, 45 - who is known for his graceful martial arts sequences in such movies as The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Hero and Romeo Must Die - is taking a break from acting to focus on projects such as helping survivors of last year's Sichuan earthquake, which killed at least 70,000 people. He has spent two years setting up a charitable foundation and recruiting the world's rich and famous to donate their time and money to help those in need in China.

Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Jackie Chan Kong-sang, Andy Lau Tak-wah and executives from Disney, Ferrari and Universal have also signed on to help.

Li considers recruiting the easy part. Now he is turning his attention to residents of China, which has one of the lowest rates of charitable giving of the world's major economies, despite its newfound wealth.

The core idea of Li's One Foundation is that in a country the size of China, if everyone gave a little, the impact would be enormous. Li is urging everyone to donate 1 yuan (HK$1.10) a month. "We set the lowest entrance barrier," Li said. "Nobody can say no."

Many of the donations used to assist victims of the earthquake came from individuals who had never donated before. In all, the foundation has received 500 million yuan from a million people. The foundation had raised the equivalent of US$13.7 million (HK$107 million) by July.

Li modeled his foundation on a publicly traded business accountable to its shareholders - in his case, donors. Transparency is essential. The charity issues quarterly reports and is audited by accountants Deloitte & Touche.

Although Li's foundation is starting with China, he hopes it will expand to other parts of the world where the concept of charity has not taken root yet. "The significance of One Foundation is not about how much money we raised. It is about how many people have been influenced by us," Li said. "This kind of pushing cannot be measured by money."

WASHINGTON POST