China Philanthropy

Urban China Initiative: Measuring Sustainability in China’s Cities

As China’s economy, cities, and industry continue to grow so does the fear that they will not be able to catch up to sustainable developments in the West. But China’s cities might be farther ahead than previously thought. In November 2010, Urban China Initiative (UCI), an NGO jointly founded by McKinsey & Company, Columbia University, and Tsinhua University, published the results of a five-month study evaluating the sustainability of 112 cities in China.

The study is a first run for the Urban Sustainability Index (USI), a measurement tool created to fill in the gap between existing tools that are either mostly theory or focus on national-level statistics. USI “is designed to measure relative performance over time of Chinese cities across a common set of sustainability categories.” USI uses five broad categories to define sustainability with 18 individual indicators that evaluate the environmental stability, the services offered by each city, and each city’s resource efficiency.

Hope for China's Street Children: Baoji Xinxing Aid for Street Kids

In direct relation to the growing number of migrant workers in China is an increasingly large population of street children. With numbers rising above 150,000, these kids face extreme poverty, are subject to abuse, and are vulnerable to exploitation by gangs and traffickers. Because many of these children still have parents, they are not eligible to go to orphanages and most have no option but to stay on the streets. One organization in Shaanxi province is reaching out to these children while also helping to prevent more children from entering life on the streets.

Xinxing Aid for Street Kids is a Chinese run NGO based in Baoji city that provides street children with support while also reuniting them with their families. The organization began in 2001 as an initiative of the international humanitarian aid organization Doctors Without Borders (DWB) after they realized there was no specialized care for street children. While Baoji is neither a popular tourism nor business destination, DWB chose it for its strategic location along a common migration route for workers in Western China moving to Eastern coastal cities in search of jobs. DWB worked side by side with Chinese staff for several years before turning the organization over to them in 2006.

Links That Make You Go Hmm: Chinese New Year Special

Happy Chinese New Year! As the holiday begins tomorrow, we thought we'd bring you some CNY themed links (and a few non-themed) to ring in the Year of the Rabbit.

Charity for Chinese New Year: The government will hand out 10.4 billion RMB ($1.58 billion) to elderly and disabled people across China in the days leading up to Chinese New Year. Local governments will choose the recipients who will be given cash donations between 100 and 180 RMB.

More Charity for Chinese New Year: Chinese tycoon Chen Guangbiao has gathered 90 other entrepreneur/philanthropists to donate money and goods in China’s poorer regions for his annual philanthropy trip. This year Chen will give away 87 million RMB in cash and 40 million in goods.

And more from Chen in Taiwan: Chen Guangbiao has also taken his hongbaos (red envelopes filled with money and given during Chinese New Year) to Taiwan this year as the most controversial part of his philanthropy trip. Chen is giving away approximately US$344,000 to Taiwan’s poor. Besides street donations, Chen also gave money to social-welfare groups and a school lunch program, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Has Wokai gone too far?: The microfinance organization has announced a rewards program to increase contributions to their grantees. Are points, presents, and prizes a step in the right direction? Join the discussion on their blog.

Google Finds It Hard to Reinvent Philanthropy: The New York Times takes a look at the challenges and failures Google.org has faced.

Growth of Private Foundations in China: The Beijing Review reports on the emergence of China’s private foundations, which Jin Jinping, Director of the Non-Profit Entity Study Center at Peking University Law School says “marks the transition of philanthropy from sporadic and direct assistance to recipients to long-term planned charity.”

Anonymous Donor in Xi’an: Using an online social media site, an anonymous Chinese man has donated RMB 20,000 (US $3,030) to migrant workers in need. After screening each donor, the 23-year-old businessman has deposited donations between RMB 100 and 200 each into approved applicants’ bank accounts.