China Philanthropy

Doing due diligence on a charity

Recently I was re-reading this Stanford Social Innovation Review article from last fall called Money to Grow On, which highlights some guidelines on which steps to take and what to look for in conducting due diligence on a nonprofit before giving a gift.  Since SVG conducts due diligence on Chinese charitable projects on behalf of our donor clients, we resonate with these suggestions and find them particularly apt in the China context, where due diligence is often overlooked due to a myriad of reasons.  Opacity and lack of information in the sector are primary barriers, but as local philanthropy is still in its early stages, often times givers are not as concerned with results as they could be.  Here are the summarized guidelines the article recommends:

Cash and a train ticket home

I came across this post taken from ChinaSmack about a BBS listing on Netease.  A charity in Dongguan has been giving away train tickets and cash for migrant workers going home this holiday season (Chinese New Year is Jan 26 this year).  The photos themselves tell the story powerfully.  I wish the original post had told us which organization was doing this, as recently we have been in several conversations with individuals and groups about the situation in the Shenzhen/Dongguan area of southern China, China's manufacturing center, which has been extremely hard hit by the economic downturn.  By some accounts, as much as a fifth of factories have closed down, and scores of jobless migrants have returned home.

From Movie Star To A Philanthropist

Jet Li as Philanthropist in Time Again!

Recently, I came across a feature story in Time Magazine, about the well-known Chinese movie star Jet Li (Li Lianjie) and his One Foundation. Different from other foundations which are either government-backed, such as China Charity Foundation, or established by wealthy individual entrepreneurs, the One Foundation is one of the few private foundations in China which has approval from the government to fundraise from Chinese citizens.