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What Does China’s Twin-Pillared NGO Funding Game Entail? Growing Diversity and Increasing Isomorphism

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Abstract

Two trends are gaining prevalence across China: (1) NGO needs for funding in order to survive and (2) the transformation of the government and private foundations into major NGO donors. This study explores grassroots NGOs’ experience with the government’s purchase-of-services contracting and private foundations’ grant schemes in Shanghai, Beijing and Sichuan. The research findings show that two opposite effects of the funding game are simultaneously felt: growing space for diversity and increasing isomorphic pressures. The two donor types have jointly created a result-driven and institutionalized environment in which NGOs easily lose sight of their missions and uniqueness. Nonetheless, despite finding their options extremely limited, NGOs adopt constantly evolving, multifaceted resource strategies.

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Notes

  1. ‘Non-governmental organization’ is used in this article to mean social organizations that are organized by citizens and that are active in the civic sphere. Although this definition is loose and there is no consensus on what constitutes an NGO in China, this article avoids the debate and focuses instead on how policy changes affect the broad group of local civic organizations, regardless of their distance from the government. Private foundations are also NGOs, but they are considered a separate group here, given their distinct resources, mission and practices.

  2. In the demand-led model, NGOs have a relatively equal partnership with their donors and enjoy great autonomy. Their accountability ‘is either downward toward constituents or internal toward organizational mission and values.’ Conversely, in the supply-led model, donors set specific goals and NGOs simply implement them; NGOs are thus accountable primarily upwards, to donors. See AbouAssi (2013) and Noakes and Teets (2018).

  3. The numbers provide rough information of the size of the pool from which the study sample of this research was selected, but some caveats should be noted: According to the official Chinese definition, ‘people-run non-enterprise units’ (minban feiqiye danwei) are defined as ‘social organizations which are established by enterprises, institutions, associations or other civic entities as well as individual citizens using non-state assets and conduct not-for-profit social service activities’ (see the State Council authorized ‘Interim Regulations on Registration Administration of Private Non-enterprise Units’ taking effect on October 25, 1998). These include not only the NGOs dedicated for advocacy or social service delivery—a group on which this study focuses—but also the privately run and non-for-profit schools, hospitals, museums and scientific research institutes which are beyond the discussion of this research. Similarly, the ‘foundation’ as mentioned in the officially reported data refers to ‘the non-profit legal person established by making use of the property donated by natural persons, legal persons, or other organizations with the purpose of pursuing welfare undertakings’ (see the ‘Regulation on Foundation Administration’ stipulated by the State Council, which took effect on August 3, 2004). Here, it is difficult to disentangle government-funded foundations from private foundations, and only the latter group is the focus of this study.

  4. See http://www.chinadevelopmentbrief.org.cn/news-18960.html.

  5. See http://www.seefoundation.org.cn/clj/newsdetail.aspx?id=1409.

  6. Registered INGOs may continue their collaboration with local government agencies and grassroots groups, but INGO activities are greatly restricted by The Foreign NGO Management Law of 2017.

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Acknowledgments

The author gratefully acknowledges the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (HKBU 22400214-ECS) for providing financial support for fieldwork in China between 2016 and 2017. The author also thanks Mo Fei, Huang Zhaoxi and Chen Wei for their excellent research assistance.

Funding

This study was funded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (HKBU 22400214-ECS).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Government and International Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong

    Yi Kang

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  1. Yi Kang
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Correspondence to Yi Kang.

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Appendices

Appendix 1: Interviewee List

Sichuan, May 2016

  1. 1.

    NGO SC-1 (community, elderly) founder, Chengdu

  2. 2.

    Scholar A

  3. 3.

    NGO SC-2 (post-disaster intervention, elderly) staff, Dujiangyan

  4. 4.

    NGO SC-2 (post-disaster intervention, elderly) founder, Dujiangyan

  5. 5.

    NGO SC-3 (disabled) founder, Dujiangyan

  6. 6.

    Official, City A Civil Affairs Bureau

  7. 7.

    Official, City B Governor

  8. 8.

    Chair, Social Organization Association

Sichuan, May 2017

  1. 9.

    Representative A of the D Foundation

  2. 10.

    NGO SC-4 (post-disaster intervention, youth) founder, Guangyuan

  3. 11.

    NGO SC-1 (community, elderly) founder, Chengdu

  4. 12.

    NGO SC-5 (post-disaster intervention, women) founder, Chengdu

  5. 13.

    NGO SC-2 (post-disaster intervention, elderly) staff, Dujiangyan

  6. 14.

    NGO SC-6 (community, elderly) manager, Dujiangyan

  7. 15.

    NGO SC-3 (disabled) founder, Dujiangyan

  8. 16.

    Scholar B

  9. 17.

    Official, City A Civil Affairs Bureau

  10. 18.

    Official, City C Governor

Beijing, May–June 2017

  1. 19.

    NGO BJ-1 (disease) founder

  2. 20.

    NGO BJ-2 (environment) founder

  3. 21.

    NGO BJ-2 (environment) staff

  4. 22.

    Scholar C

  5. 23.

    NGO BJ-3 (disease) founder

  6. 24.

    NGO BJ-3 (disease) staff

  7. 25.

    Staff at the Ai You Foundation

  8. 26.

    Scholar D

  9. 27.

    Representative B of the D Foundation

  10. 28.

    NGO BJ-4 (community, elderly) staff

  11. 29.

    Representative of E Foundation

  12. 30.

    District-level official

Shanghai, August 2017

  1. 31.

    NGO SH-1 (environment) founder

  2. 32.

    NGO SH-2 (women, community) staff

  3. 33.

    NGO SH-3 (antidrug, youth) staff

  4. 34.

    NGO SH-4 (migrants, labor, youth) founder

  5. 35.

    Scholar E

  6. 36.

    Founder of the X Foundation

  7. 37.

    Representative of the B Foundation

  8. 38.

    NGO SH-5 (disabled) founder

  9. 39.

    NGO SH-5 (disabled) manager

  10. 40.

    Founder of C Foundation

  11. 41.

    District-level official A

Shanghai, October 2017

  1. 42.

    NGO SH-2 (women, community) manager

  2. 43.

    Scholar F

  3. 44.

    District-level official B

  4. 45.

    Former Civil Affairs Bureau official

  5. 46.

    Focus group with NGO representatives, Sichuan, May 2016

  6. 47.

    Focus group with NGO representatives, Shanghai, August 2017

Appendix 2: Interview Protocols

Interview Questions (Individual and Focus-Group Interviews with NGO Representatives)

1. Could you tell me your organization’s recent experience of applying for government purchase-of-service contracting/private foundation grants?

[Probe]

  • Could you tell me more details about your applied projects in terms of their durations, target populations, contents and budgets?

  • Did your application succeed?

    • If ‘yes,’ what do you believe is the ‘secret of success’ (chenggong mijue)?

    • If ‘no,’ do you know what might have caused its failure?

2. What do you think are the differences between government agencies and private foundations in their selection of grantees?

[Probe]

  • Are there any similar criteria or concerns between the two donors?

3. After receiving funding from government agencies/private foundations, could you tell me how the projects were managed, supervised and assessed by the donors?

[Probe]

  • Differences and similarities in objective, standard, format, frequency of checks/reports, awards and penalties, etc.

  • What do you consider the most difficult or challenging part of the requirements?

  • What will happen if your organization fails to meet the donor requirements?

4. Has your organization ever tried to expand or replicate some projects funded by government/private foundations to a different site?

[Probe] (If ‘yes’)

  • What drove your organization to do so?

  • Did your organization receive any support from the donors in the process?

  • Would you consider such attempts beneficial to your organization development, and why?

[Probe] (If ‘no’)

  • Why not?

5. Is your organization’s collaboration with the government/private foundation donors generally smooth and pleasant? Will it make continuous endeavors to obtain such funding?

[Probe] (If ‘yes’)

  • What efforts has your organization made to sustain this collaboration? How challenging is the task?

  • Is there any plan to diversify the funding source, and why?

[Probe] (If ‘no’)

  • What are the challenges in this collaboration?

  • Is there any plan to change or diversify the funding source, and why?

6. What is your overall evaluation of the impact of government purchase-of-service contracting/private foundation grant on your organization’s development?

Interview Questions (Foundation representatives/Government officials)

1. What do you think are the differences between government agencies and private foundations in their selection of grantees?

[Probe]

  • Are there any similar criteria or concerns?

  • What do you believe is the ‘secret to success’? What are the common causes of failure?

2. After the NGO obtains funding from your organization, could you tell me how the projects are managed, supervised and assessed?

[Probe]

  • Differences and similarities in objective, standard, format, frequency of checks/reports, awards and penalties, etc., from government purchase-of-service contracting?

  • What do you consider the most difficult or challenging part of the requirements?

  • What will happen if an organization fails to meet your requirements?

3. Does your organization encourage and support your grantees to expand or replicate their funded projects to different sites?

[Probe] (If ‘yes’)

  • What is the rationale for doing that?

  • How do you support the NGOs in this process?

  • What challenges for the NGOs do you foresee in this process?

[Probe] (If ‘no’)

  • Why not?

4. Is your organization’s collaboration with the NGOs generally smooth and pleasant? What efforts do you make to attract the NGOs to continuously endeavor to obtain your funding?

[Probe] (If ‘yes’)

  • Do you think some of your grantees will make attempts to diversify their funding source? What is your opinion on that?

[Probe] (If ‘no’)

  • What are the challenges in this collaboration?

  • Do you think some of your grantees will make attempts to diversify their funding source? What is your opinion on that?

5. What is your overall evaluation of the impact of government purchase-of-service contracting/private foundation grant on the development of grassroots NGOs?

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Kang, Y. What Does China’s Twin-Pillared NGO Funding Game Entail? Growing Diversity and Increasing Isomorphism. Voluntas 30, 499–515 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-018-00085-1

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