Abstract
This paper examines the humanitarian work of Taiwan’s Tzu-Chi in the U.S. and discusses how the work in the U.S. has facilitated Tzu-Chi in becoming a global humanitarian NGO. Founded in 1966 by a Buddhist nun and a group of women in Taiwan, Tzu-Chi is now the largest civil association working in Taiwan and a reputable humanitarian INGO. However, the internationalization of Tzu-Chi is often taken for granted. This paper problematizes the internationalization process and engages with two theoretical perspectives—resource dependence and structural opportunity. Both perspectives cannot properly explain Tzu-Chi’s internationalization process. Drawing on historical materials and engaging with social movement theories, we argue that the U.S. experience has offered (1) cognitive liberation; (2) learning of new organizational forms. This study provides a rare case study on how a non-Western NGO becomes an INGO and offers a co-evolutionary angle to the internationalization process.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
INGO is a loosely defined term. For example, it is described as “A not-for-profit organization, independent of governmental entities and not established by intergovernmental agreement, that is transboundary in its operations, collaborations, or resources” (See the entry of INGO in A Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics and International Relations).
It has offices in 47 countries and offering humanitarian aids in 97 countries. Source: http://en.tzuchi.org/.
VOAD is the largest and the most well-established national civic organization dedicated to coordinating disaster relief once they took place. It is comprised of some of the largest American civic organizations (e.g., American Red Cross and the Salvation Army). VOAD is also a federated association and is constituted by different regional organizations. It currently has 66 organizations.
We search national newspapers such as NYTimes and local newspapers in California through the digital archive.
In the early period, the Monthly Magazine is in the form of newsletter. It contains several pages of stories, news, information, and a list of donors’ names.
Huang (2009) offers a more detailed description on the organization structure of Tzu-Chi. However, she is not aware of the fact that Tzu-Chi has developed its organizational blueprint in 1980s.
The Origin and Development of the U.S. Tzu-Chi, Tzu-Chi Monthly Vol. 325, 1993.
See Abelmann and Lie (1995) for how Koreans had been the target of violence. Also, Taiwanese and Chinese are not distinguished in the government reports or research and often lumped into the category of Asian. It is difficult to estimate the injuries of Taiwanese immigrants in this incident. Source: https://spreadsheets.latimes.com/la-riots-deaths.
We find that the authors used Chinese and Taiwanese interchangeably to describe this woman. We would like to remind readers that the distinction between Taiwanese and Chinese was still very weak in the early 1990s.
The original story was first reported in the Tzu-Chi Monthly in June 1992 as a reflection on the consequences of the LA riot. The story was then repeatedly reported in the following years. See the Tzu-Chi Monthly Vol. 307, June 1992.
Source: Tzu-Chi Monthly, Vol. 360, November 1996.
Tzu-Chi Monthly, Vol. 418, September 2001.
The U.S. Tzu-Chi mobilized several large-scale fundraising campaigns for disasters (e.g., earthquakes and typhoons) in Taiwan. These campaigns offered opportunities for the organization to attract new volunteers and strengthen their mobilization capacity. Tzu-Chi Monthly, Vol. 418, 2001.
Tzu-Chi Monthly, Vol. 419, 2001.
In the incident, the New York Tzu-Chi operated in two crisis centers. One was the NYC Family Assistant Center at Pier 94 and the other was at the Office of Recovery and Victim Center in New Jersey. Source: Tzu-Chi Monthly vol. 419, p. 29, October 2001.
The original letter written by Patrick J. Mullan was reprinted in Tzu-Chi Monthly, Vol. 422, January 2002. We contacted Mr. Mullan via email to verify the story on August 3 2017.
According to the report, the Catholic Charities of America raised $14 million, the Salvation Army raised $5.3 million, and Tzu-Chi raised $1.5 million. Daniel J. Walkin. 2001. “A Nation Challenged: The Donations; At Edge of Ground Zero, Gospel and Giving.” The New York Times, December 1. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/01/nyregion/a-nation-challenged-the-donations-at-edge-of-ground-zero-gospel-and-giving.html.
Tzu-Chi Monthly, Vol. 443, December 2003.
The campaign was launched in October in countries where Tzu-Chi had branches as a response to the September 11 incident and the disasters in previous years.
The U.S. event was held at Liberty State Park in New Jersey, which once could view the World Trade Center.
For a general description on Hurricane Katrina and the civil engagement from the U.S. civil society, see Time Magazine (2005).
Tzu-Chi Monthly, Vol. 469, Special Issue of Hurricane Katrina, September 2005.
Although slightly different in their missions, a comparable case of Asian faith-based organizations is Soka Gakkai (SG) from Japan, which is considered to be the most well-established Asian civic association in the United States. The SG-USA reported that it “assisted relief operations and collected over 40,000 toys and books for children in temporary shelters (Soka Gakkai International 2006, p. 9).” Source: https://www.sgi-usa.org/newsandevents/newsroom/sgi-brochure.pdf.
References
Abelmann, N., & Lie, J. (1995). Blue dreams: Korean Americans and the Los Angeles riots. Harvard University Press.
Aldashev, G., & Verdier, T. (2009). When NGOs go global: Competition on international markets for development donations. Journal of International Economics, 79(2), 198–210.
Anheier, H., & Themudo, N. (2002). Organisational Forms of Global Civil Society: Implications Of Going Global. In Global Civil Society (pp. 191–216). Oxford University Press.
Barnett, M., & Finnemore, M. (2004). Rules for the world: International organizations in global politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Beckfield, J. (2003). Inequality in the world polity: The structure of international organization. American Sociological Review, 68(3), 401–424.
Boli, J., & Thomas, G. M. (1997). World culture in the world polity: A century of international non-governmental organization. American Sociological Review, 62(2), 171–190.
Borchgrevink, K. (2017). NGOization of Islamic Charity: Claiming Legitimacy in Changing Institutional Contexts. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-017-9892-7
Chen, C. (2008). Getting saved in America: Taiwanese immigration and religious experience. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Dromi, S. M. (2016). Soldiers of the cross. Sociological Theory, 34(3), 196–219
Forsythe, D. (2005). The humanitarians: The International Committee of the Red Cross. Cambridge, UK: New York: Cambridge University Press.
Fox, R. C. (2015). Doctors without borders: Humanitarian quests, impossible dreams of Médecins Sans Frontières. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Huang, C. J. (2009). Charisma and compassion: Cheng Yen and the Buddhist Tzu Chi movement. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Huang, W. (2010). Between nations: Three transnational ethnic Chinese religious organizations and their presence in New York Chinese immigrant communities. Ph.D.: New School University.
Iriye, A. (2002). Global community: The Role of international organizations in the making of the contemporary world. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Kuo, C. (2008). Religion and democracy in Taiwan. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Laliberté, A. (2013). The growth of a Taiwanese Buddhist Association in China: Soft power and institutional learning. China Information, 27(1), 81–105.
Lee, T. (2010). The rise of international nongovernmental organizations: A Top-Down Or Bottom-Up Explanation? VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 21(3), 393–416.
Lee, C. (2017). Socializing hospitals: Welfare, medicine and the rise of Tzu-Chi, 1966–1980. Ph.D.: The University of Chicago.
Lee, C. (2020). The forgotten bonds: A coevolutionary framework on the diffusion of Tzu Chi in four southeast asian countries. American Behavioral Scientist. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764220947776
Lee, C., & Han, L. (2016). Faith-based organization and transnational voluntarism in China: A case study of the Malaysia Airline MH370 incident. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 27(5), 2353–2373.
Lindenberg, M., & Bryant, C. (2001). Going global: Transforming relief and development NGOs. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.
Madsen, R. (2007). Democracy’s Dharma: Religious renaissance and political development in Taiwan. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Magazine, Time. (2005). Hurricane Katrina: The storm that changed America. Des Moines, IA: Time Magazine.
McAdam, D. (1982). Political process and the development of black insurgency, 1930–1970. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Siméant, J. (2005). What Is going global? The Internationalization of french NGOs’ without borders. Review of International Political Economy, 12(5), 851–883.
Snow, D. A., Rochford, E. B., Worden, S. K., & Benford, R. D. (1986). Frame alignment processes, Micromobilization, and movement participation. American Sociological Review, 51(4), 464–481.
Tilly, Charles. (2006). Regimes and repertoires. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wang, Dan J., & Soule, Sarah A. (2012). Social movement organizational collaboration: Networks of learning and the diffusion of protest tactics, 1960–1995. American Journal of Sociology, 117(6), 1674–1722.
Wilson, R., & Brown, R. D. (2011). Humanitarianism and suffering: The mobilization of empathy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lee, C., Han, L. Becoming INGO: A Case Study on Taiwan’s Tzu-Chi in the United States. Voluntas 31, 1201–1211 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-020-00270-1
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-020-00270-1