Abstract
The rapid rise of high-wealth individuals and foundations in China should be good news for China’s grassroots NGOs whose continued growth depends critically on their ability to mobilize domestic resources. As a number of Chinese philanthropy practitioners have noted, Chinese foundations and NGOs should be natural allies and strategic partners. Yet the reality is very different as foundations currently provide very little support to NGOs, particularly the more independent, grassroots NGOs that have few ties with the government. This paper examines the disconnect between Chinese foundations and grassroots NGOs, and whether progress is being made in closing the gap between them. It argues that one of the main reasons for the gap has to do with their very different development paths, which have engendered significant structural and cultural differences between the two.
Résumé
La hausse rapide des individus et fondations très fortunés en Chine devrait constituer une bonne nouvelle pour les ONG populaires, dont la croissance dépend essentiellement de leur capacité à mobiliser des ressources nationales. Comme bon nombre de spécialistes de la philanthropie l’ont fait remarquer, les fondations et ONG chinoises devraient naturellement être des alliées et des partenaires stratégiques. La réalité est toutefois très différente. Les fondations offrent actuellement très peu de soutien aux ONG, surtout aux ONG populaires plus indépendantes, qui entretiennent peu de liens avec le gouvernement. Le présent article étudie la coupure qui existe entre les fondations et les ONG populaires de Chine, et si des progrès sont réalisés dans le but de colmater cette brèche. Il avance qu’une des principales causes de cette coupure est la différence marquée entre leurs voies de développement, ce qui a engendré des diversités structurelles et culturelles importantes entre les deux.
Zusammenfassung
Der rasche Anstieg in der Zahl vermögender Privatpersonen und Stiftungen in China sollte für Chinas Grassroots-NROs, deren anhaltendes Wachstum entscheidend von ihrer Fähigkeit zur Mobilisierung einheimischer Ressourcen abhängt, eigentlich eine gute Nachricht sein. Wie eine Reihe chinesischer philanthropischer Praktiker angemerkt haben, sollten chinesische Stiftungen und NROs natürliche Verbündete und strategische Partner sein. Doch sieht die Realität ganz anders aus. Stiftungen bieten NROs gegenwärtig nur sehr geringe Unterstützung an, insbesondere den unabhängigeren Grassroots-NROs, die nur wenige Verbindungen zur Regierung haben. Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Trennung zwischen den chinesischen Stiftungen und den Grassroots-NROs und erforscht, ob bei der Schließung dieser Lücke Fortschritte gemacht werden. Es wird behauptet, dass einer der Hauptgründe für die Lücke die sehr unterschiedlichen Entwicklungsrichtungen der Stiftungen und NROs sind, die zu bedeutenden strukturellen und kulturellen Differenzen zwischen ihnen geführt haben.
Resumen
El rápido aumento de individuos y fundaciones con grandes riquezas en China debería ser una buena noticia para las ONG de base de China cuyo continuo crecimiento depende críticamente de su capacidad para movilizar recursos domésticos. Como un número de profesionales chinos de la filantropía han observado, las fundaciones y las ONG chinas deben ser aliados naturales y socios estratégicos. Sin embargo, la realidad es muy diferente ya que las fundaciones proporcionan actualmente muy poco apoyo a las ONG, en particular a las ONG de base más independientes que tienen pocos lazos con el gobierno. El presente documento examina la desconexión entre las fundaciones chinas y las ONG de base y si se están haciendo progresos para cerrar la brecha entre ellas. Argumenta que una de las principales razones para dicha brecha tiene que ver con sus vías de desarrollo muy diferentes, que han engendrado diferencias culturales y estructurales significativas entre ambas.
摘要
中国快速增加的大量富有的个人和基金会对中国的草根NGO来说是一个好消息,其持续发展依赖于动员国内资源的能力。正如一位中国慈善从业者提到的那样,中国基金会和NGO应是天然盟友和战略合作伙伴。然而,事实极为不同,因为基金会当前对NGO提供的支持较少,尤其对于更不政府关联的更独立的草根NGO。本文检查了中国基金会和草根NGO之间的脱节,以及是否对于填补这一差距取得进展。报告强调,这一差距的主要原因之一是,它们完全不同的发展路径,这导致两者之间的极大结构和文化差别。
ملخص
ينبغي أن يكون الإرتفاع السريع للثروة العالية للأفراد والمؤسسات في الصين أخبار جيدة للمنظمات الغير حكومية (NGO) للقاعدة الأساسية للصين التي تعتمد بشكل كبير على قدرتها على تعبئة الموارد المحلية للنمو المستمر. كما لاحظ عدد من ممارسي العمل الخيري الصيني، المؤسسات الصينية والمنظمات الغير حكومية (NGO) يجب أن يكونوا حلفاء طبيعيين وشركاء إستراتيجيين. إلا أن الواقع مختلف جدا” لأن المؤسسات تقدم حاليا” دعم ضئيل جدا” للمنظمات الغير حكومية (NGO)، خاصة” الأكثر إستقلال، على مستوى القاعدة الأساسية للمنظمات الغير حكومية (NGO) التي لديها عدد قليل من العلاقات مع الحكومة. يدرس هذا البحث في الفصل بين المؤسسات الصينية و مستوى القاعدة الأساسية للمنظمات الغير حكومية (NGO) ، عما إذا كان يتم إحراز تقدم في سد الفجوة بينهما. إنها تجادل أن أحد أهم الأسباب الرئيسية للفجوة له علاقة مع مسارات التنمية المختلفة جدا”، التي أحدثت الإختلافات الهيكلية والثقافية الهامة بين الإثنين.
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29 August 2019
The present special issue (Philanthropy in China: Institutional and Social Factors) should also include the previously published papers linked below.
29 August 2019
The present special issue (Philanthropy in China: Institutional and Social Factors) should also include the previously published papers linked below.
Notes
We chose to use the acronyms PFFs and NPFFs instead of public foundations and private foundations because these same terms are used in the U.S. context to mean something quite different. We would like to thank Chen Yimei for pointing this out.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that many of the registered private foundations do little programming either in terms of grant-making or operating projects, so it is likely that these percentages of 41 and 21.6% would be smaller if the 882 foundations that had not responded were included in the sample.
Interview with Zhuang Ailing, executive director of the NPO Development Center in Shanghai, September 30, 2014. See also Mercy Corps China (2010).
This case is often cited as the earliest pilot with government contracting which began to be carried out on a large scale in the early 2010s (Xu 2009).
The use of the term “traditional” is misleading because it refers to a tradition that was established during the early part of the reform period (1980s to the early 2000s), not to the earlier pre-1949 philanthropic tradition which was quite different. For studies on Chinese philanthropy prior to Communist period, see Smith (2009) and Simon (2013).
The percentages do not add up to 100% because some of these categories are not mutually exclusive.
As Xu (2013) points out, this reflects the lack of independence foundations have from their founders, whether they be government or corporate backers. Many Chinese foundations are simply an extension of the government agency or company that founded them.
Another recent survey of 263 grassroots NGOs from Beijing, Guangdong and Yunnan shows similar results with education, environment, HIV/AIDS and labor rights being among the most common areas, although the choice of these three provinces/cities makes the sample less representative (Spires et al. 2014).
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Acknowledgements
This paper was a collective effort made possible by the help of my former colleagues at China Development Brief. I would like to thank Chen Yimei and Fu Tao for their comments, Tom Bannister for his editing help, and Wu Weiming and Fu Tao for their research assistance. I also appreciate the valuable feedback provided by Scott Kennedy and the comments I received from commentators and the audience when I presented a draft of this paper at the China Philanthropy Summit, October 31–November 1, 2014, Indianapolis, IN.
Funding
This study was commissed as part of the Indiana University’s China Philanthropy Initiative funded by Grants from the Ford and Luce Foundations.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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The data collection involved interviews with adult workers in nonprofit organizations and the government system. Oral informed consent was obtained in the interview scheduling stage and at the beginning of each interview. The oral informed consent includes clear explanation of the research purposes, interview procedure and contents, potential risks and benefits, ways to ensure confidentiality, and voluntary participation. Formal written consent form was intentionally avoided because of the particularity of the Chinese culture and government controls over the nonprofit sector: interviewees usually do not feel comfortable signing the form and seeking written consent can have the effect of making the interviewees less candid in their responses. In addition, because the interviews sometimes required them to provide a critical assessment of the government-controlled philanthropy sector, the interviewees sometimes expressed their preference not to leave their names on any records.
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This paper was a collective effort made possible by the help of my colleagues at China Development Brief. I would like to thank Chen Yimei and Fu Tao for their comments, Tom Bannister for his editing help, and Wu Weiming and Fu Tao for their research assistance.
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Shieh, S. Same Bed, Different Dreams? The Divergent Pathways of Foundations and Grassroots NGOs in China. Voluntas 28, 1785–1811 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-017-9864-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-017-9864-y