Charity

[Outofin]

Let's have a thread about charity in China. I feel charities have been become a more visible force in recent years. How much can I trust them? How well do they manage their finance? If I want to donate some money from overseas on education or environment, what would you recommend?

[muyongshi]

I have always wondered about the one that is so famous in helping children who have lost schooling due to money, 希望工程. I mean for the most part they sound completely legit but I have to wonder if anyone is getting rich off of it or anything...

[Rhubarb]

I feel charities have been become a more visible force in recent years.

I feel charities have become more influential in recent years.

I've done my part.

[simonlaing]

I have heard about hope charities and had a a couple of students in uni who were on scholarships.

One who came from Guizhou province, near Yunnan but poor. He was working two part time jobs in vacations and weekends so that he could stay in Nanjing and pay for his board.

Also I have seen some opportuinities to teach or contribute to migrant worker's children schools. Because they don't have the resident permit or hukou ben, they can't enroll in city schools. Separate ones are sometimes set up for them, but the opportuinities are few and far between. Usually the kids stay with their grandparents in the home town.

I had a friend who did an internship with a women's empowerment NGO/charity and the peace corps are active in Sichuan province.

Have fun,

Simon:)

[zhwj]

Southern Weekly did an investigation into corruption within Project Hope, the state-run charity, back in 2001/2002. There's a great article at China Media Project.

[studentyoung]

How much can I trust them? How well do they manage their finance?

That’s also the very thing I what to know! In the US, all the charity groups must keep their financial conditions open and release their financial report yearly. I think Chinese charity groups should make their financial conditions clearer to win more people trust.

If I want to donate some money from overseas on education or environment, what would you recommend?

If possible, I think you consider to donate your money to some those charities based in US or HK.

Here is an article which gives you some ideas on how charity groups run in US.

在得克萨斯州，在非营利机构中就业的人员数量与该州在各级政府部门中就业的人数相等。从人员流向趋势来看，同类工种的工资水平，在慈善公益机构中工作，比企业低，但与政府部门接近。美国有上百万个非营利机构，这些机构为争取慈善捐款或承包政府有关服务项目而激烈地竞争。与企业相似，新成立的非营利机构，许多由于募不到足够的资金，2－3年后自生自灭。能洞察社区需要而又经营得当的，则得以生存发展。胜负在于谁的募款能力强，而募款的能力又与目标选择、服务质量、对社会问题轻重缓急的了解与把握、与大众的沟通能力，财务的透明可靠程度以及工作效率密切相关。所以，慈善组织中，每个部门，每个岗位，都需要高质量的员工。服务目标确定之后，募款能力的竞争也是对高素质员工的竞争。如果采用低于市场价值的工资体制，员工积极性不高，流动性大，培训成本增加，服务质量下降，无法形成良性循环，最终会在募款竞争中成为输家。非营利单位的管理和运作与企业一样，需要付出成本，需要聘得到、留得住高质量的专职员工。员工工资一般是由当地人力资本市场和用人单位的经济实力和管理水平来调节平衡。

http://cache.baidu.com/c?word=%C3%C0%B9%FA%3B%B4%C8%C9%C6%3B%D7%E9%D6%AF%3B%B5%C4%3B%D4%CB%D3%AA&url=http%3A//publish%2Enpo%2Ecom%2Ecn/article%2Ephp/310&p=8072d65f939812a059ecc4710d12c6&user=baidu

海外经验：慈善组织的运营成本

Cheers!

[LaoZhang]

I'd recommend checking out Sowers Action, based in HK.

I know some of the China based staff and they work hard for the local people in less-developed. Funding comes from donors all over, North America, HK, etc. and they have a lot of projects for building schools in poor mountainous regions. They've also sponsored a few hundred English teachers to go to 北大 to study for a month (which is how I know about Sowers). One of my friends often climbs mountains to talk to the people in the villages up there about opening schools, etc. They also have annual walks (Long March, Walkathons).

They have a DVD about the work they do. I almost cried when I watched it. I don't know if they have any videos posted online. They have offices in Yunnan (昭通) , Guangdong, Chongqing, and of course HK.

Chinese site (繁体字)

English site

(Sites are a little slow, just be patient)

If you want to get a hold of the staffers directly, feel free to PM me.

[Outofin]

Last time I went home, I noticed some collection boxes of 中华慈善会 quietly sitting in the corner of restaurants and stores. I had no idea what they were for and how much they could collect in this way. I also saw their ad in a subway tunnel. (yes, tunnel. A sort of animation when the train moves. Very cool.) Unofficial organizations are not allowed to use the name of 中国, so they often use 中华. Are they any better?

[tianjinpete]

Jian Hua

"Jian Hua" means "build China" in Chinese and was founded in 1981 by a group of Chinese businessmen and academics in Hong Kong. JHF is dedicated to serving the people of China through sending professionals to serve in a wide variety of positions, ranging from language teachers to medical doctors, development workers to occupational therapists, linguists to orphanage workers and businessmen.

https://www.jhf-china.org/cms/

Room to Read

Room to Read's goal is to provide 10 million children with the lifelong gift of education. The concept of a school library is virtually non-existent in many communities throughout the developing world. Because so many people in the developing world survive on less than US$1 per day, children's books are considered luxury items. In some cases, not a single book is available to children to encourage independent learning, intellectual curiosity, and a lifelong passion for reading. Room to Read was founded in 2000 to address this simple need. Establishing libraries and filling them with children's books –both in English and in their local language – is the charter.

http://www.roomtoread.org/

[ajax]

I did some volunteer work for Habitat for Humanity in 2005. They're in Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guangdong building houses. In China they mostly focus on leprosy villages. Seemed like a good organization. They're Christian, but seemed pretty low-key about it. I get the impression that many NGO's (at least in Yunnan) are just missionary fronts.

http://www.habitatchina.org/

Also, I know the Nature Conservancy is big in Yunnan: http://www.nature.org/wherewework/asiapacific/china/

[Woodpecker]

I did some volunteer work for Habitat for Humanity in 2005. They're in Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guangdong building houses. In China they mostly focus on leprosy villages. Seemed like a good organization. They're Christian, but seemed pretty low-key about it.

That's because being a Christian in Mainland China is dangerous! (sh)

[muyongshi]

There is also this one that was started by Jet Li (李连杰) Called The One Foundation (壹基金)

Don't know too much about it but it looks interesting...