Want to Start a Non-Profit in China? Good luck.
We’re no longer in non-profit happy America. The Chinese government has some very tight rules on how an non-profit or NGO can form, and any organizations that operate out of these rules can be shut down at any time. Here’s just a little taste.
In China, all NGOs must register with the Ministry of Civil Affairs. However, in order to register, they must fulfill certain conditions:
1. They must be sponsored by a government or party department in a relevant field. If the organization is rejected, there’s no appeals process, and no recourse in terms of seeking sponsorship from a different department. Better know someone in the government, and promise not to bite them back.
2. Only one NGO of a similar type may register at each administrative level. So for example, because the China Environmental Workers Association exists, no other NGOs involved in environmental activities at the national level can register. This helps monopolize state-sponsored organizations.
3. NGOs cannot operate outside of the region they are registered in. This makes sure that NGOs do not spread beyond their approved sphere of influence.
4. NGOs must have startup funds of over $12,000 if national, or $3,600 if local, in order to register. But usually, organizations can’t raise money unless they are legitimately registered. This chicken and egg scenario guarantees that only groups or individuals with a decent endowment of personal resources right off the bat can register.
5. NGOs must have more than 50 individual members, or more than 30 institutional members, in order to register. This prevents small grassroots organizations from registering.
6. NGOs have to go through an annual investigation by the registration and management agencies. The Ministry of Civil Affairs can issue warnings, demand changes, or cancel a registration if an NGO diverges from its original objectives. Organizations also have to submit an annual report of their operations and finances to their sponsoring agency. Big brother is always watching.
By the way, I hear the Ford Foundation is currently having legal issues. No one’s immune!
Interesting NY Times Article
Romance Amid Chinese Quake Recovery Effort
Working Hypotheses for Our Project Area
After some initial research on international best practices, I have some working hypotheses for post-disaster redevelopment that would attract social entrepreneurship and governance innovation, especially for towns in our project area that have been utterly devastated by the earthquake. Of course, this is an initial gloss of what’s ideal, and not necessarily reflective of limitations that may be imposed by the government, local culture, and availability of resources. This is why we have fieldwork for three weeks in China - to test some ideas out.
1. Rural Education Demonstration Project - In China, a huge disparity exists between student achievement and higher education attainment between urban and rural areas, and also between coastal and inland provinces. Many of the areas devastated by the earthquake are both rural and inland, and represent the most difficult circumstance for a child to achieve. A rural education demonstration project will attempt to answer the question, “what happens if we put the same amount of resources into the school system of a rural community as we do for schools in Beijing and Shanghai?”
This can be done in two ways. (1) The government can fund and design the school system of a rural town at the same level as that of an urban school. This would involve not only equipping the school with all the necessary resources for an excellent education, but also bringing in highly-skilled educators to participate in the project. This project must be designed with sustainability and replication in mind. (2) The government can open up a rural town’s education system to private-philanthropic and charter schools, who will bring innovative ways to educate. This could be a way for the government to keep its own costs low, while relying on these privately run schools to find additional resources or cut costs. However, the government should set baseline standards of performance, as well as requirements for social education that is compliant with the state.
*In both of these examples, the government must provide for the construction of safe school buildings.*
2. Greenest Region in China - This example takes a lot from Greensburg, and is reflective of both the mood within China and the international community to go green. The government can designate a medium-sized city as a “Green Development Zone,” and initiative the necessary regulations to ensure that every sector, including industry, construction, transportation, housing, tourism, infrastructure, and land use reflects the highest standards currently in existence for sustainable development. Then, the government can set up a NGO entity that will be responsible for attracting grants, loans, and entrepreneurs to come into the city and contribute to each of these sectors. Finally, the ideal is to get community buy-in by involving residents in the planning process, as well as implementing education programs to help residents learn about how to live in a sustainable fashion. This would be very well suited for Sichuan, a province that is celebrated for its natural beauty, its pandas, and its cuisine. May I suggest eco-tourism?
3. Public Participation in Community Redevelopment - Probably the craziest idea in this list given China’s political context, but well suited for a town that has been completely devastated. Recovery in China is often focused on providing basic needs and rebuilding without much public input, and the civic culture is very negative towards public participation. Unfortunately, in post-disaster situations, the lack of public participation can create a lot of resentment, as victims of the disaster begin blaming the government for any mistakes made in the rebuilding effort. So this proposal is geared towards a different way of doing business. The government sets up a community redevelopment committee, whose job is to run community strategic planning and redevelopment workshops. These workshops will provide a forum for the community to express its own ideas on how their new town should be rebuilt. The government should provide necessary resources, ideas, and alternatives to educate community members of all the options. Then, the community “strategic rebuilding plan” can be used as an advisory document for government rebuilding efforts. Even though this is more time consuming than rebuilding without community input, this approach creates greater community participation and reduces the risk of backlash. It demonstrates that the government is attentive to the needs of its people.
4. Non-profit Incubation Zone - Similar to the special economic zones of the Deng Xiaoping era, the government can designate an earthquake town as a non-profit incubation zone. In this zone, rules would be relaxed to make it easier for non-profits to register, obtain funding, and do their community-level work. Of course, requirements must be put in place against political agitation, and each non-profit should go through some sort of approval process to get tax-exempt status. But the general attitude should be to encourage non-profits to flourish, especially in providing for the soft-side of recovery: social services, health care, education, counseling, and small business development.
5. Small Business Incubators - Many communities in the U.S., being in post-disaster or long-term economic depression, have set up small business incubators to help local residents see their entrepreneurial ideas into reality. Small business incubators rely on a small group of extremely knowledgeable staff that can help local clients with everything, including business planning, finding sources of financing, strategic management consulting, information technology assistance, and acquisition of equipment and human resources. Funded by the government or existing philanthropy organizations, small business incubators represent an effective strategy for creating value from within the community, rather than relying on continuous government support and/or aid from domestic and foreign NGOs.
Which Path to Recovery?
For any community, disaster recovery can be a very long, arduous, and often contentious process. After going through an intensely traumatic experience of surviving the disaster itself, victims must then pick up the pieces of what they have left and rebuild anew. As I go about my initial research, the strategies that different communities have used, and the mentality that communities collectively have when approaching the recovery process, has really dictated how well and how quickly a community recovers.
There’s a huge difference between relief, recovery, and redevelopment. Relief implies providing aid to satisfy the most immediate needs of disaster victims; everything from tents to food, blankets, and medicine. We saw international relief efforts in full force after the Tsunami, and also mass mobilization of relief by the Chinese Government, as well as Chinese citizens, after the Sichuan Earthquake. Recovery, on the other hand, implies a longer term process by which the community that was destroyed gets rebuilt. It means fixing the damaged roads, rebuilding the schools, and providing some kind assistance for residents to rebuild their homes and find economic opportunities. Recovery implies making the community return to the way it once was, as best as the community can.
My partner and I subscribe to the third strand of thought: redevelopment. We believe that disasters present a great opportunity to redevelop a devastated area to be even better than the community that once stood in its place. Take the example of Greensburg, Kansas. In early 2007, Greensburg was completely destroyed by an EF5 Tornado. 95% of the town’s buildings laid in ruins. When the city government and local residents began the recovery planning process, the town collectively decided to rebuild Greensburg with the brand “Greensburg GreenTown.” They wanted Greensburg to become the most environmentally sustainable town in America. A non-profit was started to help local residents build homes that saved energy, and the city committed itself to rebuild all public buildings to be LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Development) Platinum certified, the highest sustainability rating possible. There are even plans to implement a public transportation system that runs completely on renewable energy. Greensburg’s initiative has triggered an influx of aid, expertise, and social capital to help boost the recovery effort.
A community must have tremendous will to implement the redevelopment approach. The talent and resources needed for redevelopment can be found either within the community, or brought in from the outside. But community will is absolutely crucial. So the big question is, can this idea have traction in China, where the government serves as the driving force, and often the dominant player, behind the recovery process? At what levels are ordinary citizens involved in re-imagining the community they want to live in? Can we help move the mentality forward, from recovery to redevelopment?
Sichuan Prologue
by Minghua Li on December 22, 2008 in Blog
Throughout my two years of working in China, I’ve only seen its most prosperous face. Living in Beijing was similar to living in any large cosmopolitan city in Asia. When I moved there in 2004, I adapted as quickly as any foreigner would to a place like Paris. The real China, however, is very different, especially in central and western China where a 8.0 earthquake hit several months ago killing over 69,000 people. Sichuan Province, the home of my grandfather, is a province known for its panda reserves, wild bamboo forests, and large farms. After the earthquake, the lives of locals dependent on tourism and farming the land for their livelihood have been changed forever. While Lin and I have spent time researching the earthquake, trying to understand the level of devastation experienced by local citizens, we cannot imagine the amount of loss and human suffering that has occurred. In all truth, it is beyond our comprenhension. We hope to make the most of our trip to help those who are at the beginning of their long road to recovery and to learn what it takes to mend the community’s social networks.
From Inside the Belly of the Dragon
At the Great Wall in 2005.
At the beginning of my second MPP year at the Kennedy School, I knew I wanted to do my PAE on China. I had no topic or client, and no contacts in China to solicit; only a yearning to produce something of value for the country of my birth. My relationship with China had always been tenuous. I left China and immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 4. My parents went through the tumultuous times of the Great Leap Forward, the famine, and the Cultural Revolution, and so they had no desire to move back. During the memorable years of growing up, I always considered myself a tourist whenever I visited, especially since my family in China took care of us like tourists. Read more
December 10 Issue
by The Editors on December 10, 2008 in Print Edition
One Christmas Miracle, Please
by Carlyn Reichel on December 10, 2008 in Opinion
“It’s official,” the New York Times announced early last week, “the U.S. economy is in recession.”
Next to that, a cheery story about the death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq being over 4,000 since the “Mission Accomplished” declaration. East Asia looks ready to explode at any moment, and to top it all off, Saxby Chambliss got re-elected to the Senate, despite my previous Op-Ed. Is it just me, or does this seem like the version of the world from “It’s a Wonderful Life” where George Bailey was never born and everything sucks?
But even as I slap my cheeks in “Home Alone”-like panic, this very thought inspires me with the spirit and potential of the season. Putting aside all of the religious significance of the holidays, this is a wonderful time of year. Some might even say it’s the most wonderful time of the year. People are nicer to one another in the street. Twinkle-lights festoon the dark Cambridge nights, making the cold seem just a bit more bearable. The weird guy from my bus route has his elf hat on. And while incessant Christmas music is irritating prior to December, now it’s downright jolly.
So maybe, just like in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” all we really need is a good dose of Christmas spirit and a belief in our better angels to turn it all around. The answers America has been looking for are all right there in the holiday specials currently clogging my DVR. Let’s start with the classics. Read more
Intellectualism is the New Communism
by Emily Cadik on December 10, 2008 in Opinion
Every time I return to Texas, I encounter a slew of reminders that I’m not in Cambridge anymore. One time, I found out my hometown had a river that wasn’t there before (because you can’t build a riverwalk without a river, am I right?). This time, I passed a billboard next to a church boasting “150 foot cross - COMING SOON!!!” And just when I thought I couldn’t be more saturated with the spirit of Texas, I read my local paper’s letters to the editor.
A Neysa Thorell of Montgomery, Texas was sounding the alarm about the socialist storm headed to Washington. She grabbed my attention with the following: “Calling Obama a socialist is not pejorative; it’s a statement, an observation if you will.” I began to lose interest as she got into an assortment of the standard complaints that we’ve heard from the right for months - he associates with terrorists, anarchists, etc. But then, the kicker: “He’s done drugs with who knows who and indulged in existential musings with Harvard-educated intellectuals.” Read more
The Kennedy School of American Government?
by Sara Agarwal on December 10, 2008 in Opinion
What makes a school international? I’d argue it’s a mix of three things: an international student body, a good mix of international faculty, and international content in the classroom.
Surely, the greatest of schools should seek to reflect the reality of increased globalization and work to prepare students for it, thus modeling themselves as microcosms of the new world through international faculty, students, and content.
Why, then, has the Kennedy School not completed this step? Sure, HKS has the highest number of international students of any Harvard school. Indeed, this year 439 Kennedy School students are from outside the United States, comprising 43 percent of the current student body. Yet faculty are not nearly as representative. Only 24 faculty members of 123 full-time-equivalent faculty members are international themselves (roughly 19 percent). HKS has just one full-time faculty member from the continent of Africa (and its 850 million people). Read more
