Marketing Management: Something to Mull Over for NPOs
Despite the registration barricades for NGO, many of them find their own way of survival. So competition is intensive for financial and material donations. “To convince people or the government to back your project and your organisation, you have to treat them like customers. Without influence and trust, you are rejected from donations. So running an NPO requires marketing, mass communication and promotion as well,” so did Ta put his theory.
Arrows swiftly moving around the screen, Ta Linfu (‘Child of Grassland’ in Mongolian), founder of Chinahope, was demoing all the images, videos as well as prizes of honour they collected over the past five years. He thoroughly understood the importance of marketing for an NPO. “To serve better you have to gather as much resource as possible, of course, based on a good brand image,” Ta asserted.
Chinahope was founded by Ta Linfu in 2003 intended to be a non-profit organisation calling on tour drivers to engage with environmental protection and education aids as they travel. Its members now cover across the country with its number skyrocketing from less than ten to over a hundred thousand. About 50,000 people and 30,000 vehicles have been involved in its organised activities during the last five years. Its glorious history includes two desert control centres respectively in Inner Mongolia and He Bei Province, one forest. Since 2003, major events concerning book donations have been launched among tour drivers, leaving their footprints in poor western areas. Totally more than 10,000 books have been contributed to over 30 schools in Gansu and Sichuan Province; an innumerable amount of commodity and stationery has been delivered to scores of schools in He Bei Province and Inner-Mongolia; and financial aids have been given directly to over 300 poor students in He Bei Province.
Marketing—A Weapon to Win Battles
“During the period our public service ads were broadcasted through bus-on-line, we gained steadfast progress in the volume of our volunteers and donations,” said Ta, “such is the case that underscore the critical role of marketing and branding in the development of China’s NPOs, especially given the monopolistic environment of China’s donation market.”
Despite the registration barricades for NGO, many of them find their own way of survival. So competition is intensive for financial and material donations. “To convince people or the government to back your project and your organisation, you have to treat them like customers. Without influence and trust, you are rejected from donations. So running an NPO requires marketing, mass communication and promotion as well,” so did Ta put his theory.
Mr Ta is a straight talker, keeping no experience to himself. In his mind, non-profit career calls for trust and cooperation among different organisations. “We have our own media partners,” added Ta, “including China Philanthropy Times, Cheyoo (an automobile newspaper), Travel TV, etc. There we have our columns. Our video clips were broadcasted through CCTV News Channel for a considerable period. And we are currently making a channel of our own. All these promotional resources have strengthened our voice.”
Thanks to its social network and media power, Chinahope is supported in various forms by Beijing Donation Acceptance Administration Centre. For the same reason, Beijing TV ardently proposed collaboration with Chinahope in donations to quake-affected areas.
Marketing—A Key to Win Hearts
The last decade has witnessed a boom of media industry; yet its unharnessed growth has not made any remarkable difference for businesses. The cost of advertisements shoots up, but their effectiveness goes all the way down the slope: corporate branding has hit the wall.
An alternative channel to maintain image, charitable events have gone into big companies’ sight. Johnson&Johnson, Microsoft, Coco Cola and some local companies began to take action. As a special PR activity, charity marketing brings favourable results to three parties: NPOs get their fund, businesses promote their brand and the public get the product while supporting charity.
In fact, the idea of ‘charity marketing’ has already been markedly highlighted on Chinahope’s website. “We take it very seriously,” said Ta, “we’ll plan some campaigns that reflect the company’s needs as long as they go with our tones. For example, if a company sets up a new 4S outlet somewhere, we may probably designate that place to host our event. To return the favour of sponsoring our event, we’ll communicate the company to the public via the media we’re familiar with.
“Cynics say NPOs are just like being used by businesses in this way. But I disagree,” Mr Ta insisted, “motivation scepticism drives real business into endless coma. Just because NPOs should not be enslaved by money doesn’t mean they should stay clear of rational business operation. Marketing is a must-learn lesson for NPOs. For charitable ideas and projects are their products and supporters their consumers.”
Serve, Not Only Give: Talk with Guo Bin on Migrant Schools
“For years we’ve been researching on our practice, which has become precious experience,” said Guo full of hope, “We realize the experience should be known to more people. So in collaboration with Narada Foundation, we’ll build a migrant school. There we’ll experiment on our experience. If it works, we’ll introduce our practice countrywide. The scheme has already been on agenda. I believe the future of migrant schools lies in professional and non-profit service, rather than donating to build more of them. Professional practice enables the migrant children to get the same level of education as urban children while, non-profit service would earn constant public attention to this problem.”
Stiffling heat triggered, rather than ruined,Guo Bin’s narration of the history and future of Beijing True Love Education Service Institute (shortly, BTLESI). His clear thought brought me to the fact that wisdom, on top of enthusiasm, erects non-profit career as a cause.
Since 1980s, millions of rural migrant workers flooded into cities, with the number climbing up to 150 million from the original two million. Tentative at first, migrant workers have long lived under the government’s tacit permission as part of urban society. Now they can reunite with their family in the city. More noteworthy are the children that immigrate with their parents into cities, now reported as many as 20 million. Against the backdrop of economic reforms, education is also brought to the table as a priority issue; however, the tightly-knit relation between schooling and permanent residence policy is dragging the foot of education popularisation, especially for rural workers’ children.
Back to 1990s, some organisations, including the government, took the first step to seek a way out. Some of them looked to public schools. But the heavy schooling fees or so called “sponsor charge” kept the kids at bay, which stimulated the rise of migrant schools. Featured by low cost those schools met the children’s need to some extent. But problems remain big.
“There are around 300 migrant schools in Beiijng, with only 60 or some officially granted,” said Guo, “Most of the rest are struggling desperately against inadequate teachers, unbalanced sheet, potentially illegal status, and frequent move from one location to another….Whatever their motivation, they should be respected for the efforts to boost education equality.”
Teachers are a common concern. Not all migrant schools have enough charisma to lure qualified teachers. Addressing such embarrassment is the commitment of BTLESI. Training its teachers, volunteers and students with scientific education ideas and newest information resources, and tuning the public into the process and result of the practice, the institute tries to grab a collective force to solve the children’s education problem.
“For years we’ve been researching on our practice, which has become precious experience,” said Guo full of hope, “We realize the experience should be known to more people. So in collaboration with Narada Foundation, we’ll build a migrant school. There we’ll experiment on our experience. If it works, we’ll introduce our practice countrywide. The scheme has already been on agenda. I believe the future of migrant schools lies in professional and non-profit service, rather than donating to build more of them. Professional practice enables the migrant children to get the same level of education as urban children while, non-profit service would earn constant public attention to this problem.”
White Paper on Education of Rural Migrant Workers’ Children, a book that sorts out the previous research on this subject and discusses the past, present and future of migrant children’s education, is the summer project for BTLESI. The paper is aimed at the public, hopefully to awake wider awareness of the issue; after all, education is a matter of all responsible citizens.
Methodologically a Volunteer Training Manuel is under way. Volunteers are the backbone of any non-profit organisation. Brimming with passion but inadequate in skills and experience, they often pay effort twice as much as is needed. Written by veteran teachers, volunteers and relevant experts, the book provides a guideline for volunteers to understand migrant schools, to communicate with the children, to organise activities, to cooperate with other teachers, and if need be, to visit their parents.
“Education concerns the hope of a nation. If 80% of its people are kept off education, the nation is heading towards the tomb. So I hope everyone of us could be part of this great cause,” prayed Guo in the end.
Road to Civic Society—Dialogue with Zhai Yan, Executive Director of Beijing Huizeren Human Service Centre
Since volunteer culture and volunteer training mechanism have not taken root in China, the ambition always hits the wall to put all volunteers in the right place. A more reliable model lies in the concept of “civic society” where government indirectly rules the society.
Upon Huizeren online hang three slogans: “Equality for all, and all due respect for diversity”, “Your help for others is for yourself as it digs out another side of you”, “Let your life change that of others”. All these resounding mottos come down to one word—humanism. In this context, “humanism” can be outlined as centring around people based on their mental and occupational needs to improve service efficiency. The biggest discovery of my visit to Huizeren is its human-centred principle.
Zhai Yan，an easy-going volunteer trainer, is the executive director of Huizeren. During the interview her silver tones, clear-cut logics and far-stretched vision gripped me tight inside.
Huizeren has a clear priority task—structuring a complete volunteer training system, or in other words, extending training service of all kind to NPO members and volunteers. Actually, such organisations are rare in China and as far as current statistics show, there are no courses on civic education at any education institution. “Teach yourself before teaching others because no one is expert from the beginning,” Zhai put it this way.
In 2003 when SARS waged the dreadful war against the country, Huizeren was set up against the tide. Unlike its NPO counterparts, Huizeren did not hassle with directly confronting the disease. Instead, it adhered to its own judgement—volunteer training and research into NPO mechanism in China.
Despite ups and downs and pressure from all aspects, Huizeren has worked out a seamless system of training courses composed of three layers—“volunteer service concept and basic skills” for volunteers, “volunteer administration and project management” for mid-level managers and “leadership and organisation administration” for top brass. These three courses are so intertwined that they wield separate cells within the organisation into an organic circle. For example, managers that attend volunteer administration courses may affect and teach their volunteer staff (There are over 200 professional volunteer trainers, most of them from colleges and NPOs).
Huizeren has positioned three core services—training, mechanism construction, research and publicity. Guided by such orientations, Huizeren is now clearer about what it is supposed to do at crisis. The best evidence is the recent Wenchuan Earthquake when Huizeren did not rush to forefront but directed its attention to what capabilities were needed in the rescue as well as reconstruction process. By doing that, they insisted, different NPOs could appear where they were most needed. “Currently few organisations can remain sober and independent to supervise the rescue and put forth valuable proposals. They don’t know what their role really is,” said Zhai.
Usually on heels of a catastrophe, a spate of new NPOs would spring up, vying to have place in history. However, as Zhai criticised, everything is twofold. When disasters fall, civic consciousness may be evoked in some people, urging them to voluntarily scrape up an NPO-like rescue team, which is by all measures praiseworthy. But such makeshift gatherings would not sustain. The real sustainable model should be tolerant in the first place, acknowledging the existence of other organisations such as those serving the disadvantaged, the marginalized, AIDS carriers, the homosexual, the disabled and the divorced. Without the diversity of volunteer service, citizens are deprived of rights to choose. And this diversity means everything to Huizeren, a training body built on NPO eco-circle: the more NPOs, the more clients. In this sense, the quake crisis is nonetheless a chance for Huizeren.
But the overheated NPO fever is not immune to side effects. The bubble will be pricked once the fever cools down. Therefore, constant passion, rather than fever, determines the lifespan of an NPO. “That’s what Huizeren is obliged to do—studying varieties of cases and then summing up an empirical guideline for all NPOs,” said Zhai with excitement. As she introduced, rescue work is a grinding test of physical and mental strength. At the time of mental disturbance, men tend to blow it up while women would rather keep silent. As most NPOs are struggling to help others, Huizeren is thinking about how to help them.
Since volunteer culture and volunteer training mechanism have not taken root in China, the ambition always hits the wall to put all volunteers in the right place. A more reliable model lies in the concept of “civic society” where government indirectly rules the society. In this society, enterprises are the first option; they roll out products based on market rules. People that cannot afford market products could appeal to non-profit organisations. Government only plays a coordinator role between profit and non-profit sectors by issuing policies and organising procurement.
If we compare Huizeren to an enterprise in the profit sector, it provides raw materials for the consumer product suppliers (in this analogy NPOs). Its performance is heavyweight to both NPOs and the public. It is the “hero behind the scene”.
The hero now has its long-term plan—three-year “Western V” projects and a five-year inter-provincial project. “Western V” projects, renewed every three years, are aimed at helping citizens in poor areas, especially West China, set up their own NPOs. The inter-provincial project, with duration of five years, is launched to back programmes of training poverty-relieving volunteers across five provinces.
It was nearly six o’clock at the close of the interview. Yet Zhai Yan, given no time to think of supper, had to hurry on to a conference discussing Huizeren’s training service in the 2008 Olympic Games. She’s always been on the run. As she put it in her essay Doing NPO with Faith, “it is our faith or value judgement that decides who we are, and ignites our sense of commitment.”
Why doing NPO? Nothing but driven by faith!
Value Fulfilment and Route Exploration—A Visit to One-plus-one International Exchange Center
Mid-January 2008—in the “Good luck, Beijing!” International Wheelchair Basketball Friendship Games emerged two vision-impaired journalists from One-plus-one Studio of One-plus-one Cultural Exchange Center. Their presence captured spotlight because their studio is the first radio production team by vision-impaired people that fulfils the whole chain from interview to programming to broadcasting. Its regular programs have now covered over 60 radio stations all around the country.
Gao Shan, chief of the organization, once pointed out in an interview that if blind people could be active part of main social events and make their voice, it would be a good practice for disabled people to be melting to society and to fulfil their value. An NGO established and run by the disabled, One-plus-one has been dedicated to tracking social development, delivering the public’s voice as well as exploring the operation of social benefit enterprises.
Value Fulfilment—Their Mental Needs
Registered in March 2006, One-plus-one is a social benefit organization launched by disabled volunteers, 12 of whom are whole-time staff including nine disabled. They are young and talented: most of them were born in the 1980s, and all of them received higher education.
One-plus-one has been focused on the production and development of audio-programs, providing a service and broadcast platform for all NGOs to boost the communication and practices of the disadvantaged groups in skill training, information exchange and social development and ultimately to enhance their living abilities and fulfil their value.
“Every individual has a deep pool of potentials, and so do the disabled,” said Gao Shan, “they can do amazing things just as normal people and they are desperate to prove that. So that’s what we are trying to do.” He also believed that every bit of effort One-plus-one is making in information delivery and idea innovation is a positive extension to what they call “help-others model”.
In the studio located in South Beijing, your journalist saw the third-generation recording and producing system being adjusted. “The programs we produce are not only service for the disabled, but also the manifest of our thoughts, our dreams. Meanwhile we find pleasure in such service. So everybody is enjoying their work,” introduced one of the staff. The studio has to date produced a couple of programs including life-related newscast and entertainment broadcast for the disabled, and programs for the public to raise social concerns for the disabled.
In a topic selection meeting, your journalist noticed that all the hosts and editors were speaking out their opinions, agreeing and disagreeing with one another. Here ideas crossed over minds amid an easy atmosphere. “Everyone here is a producer, a host. And their proposals are equally expressed and if reasonable, will be put into practice,” said the young host Qing Feng.
Social Benefit Enterprise—The Third Option of NGO
As an inseparable part of One-plus-one Exchange Center, the studio is feeling its way to a rational operation model, which means that it is neither a pure social benefit organization, nor a 100% profit-seeking enterprise, but a combination that makes profit to feed back to society. “Speaking of NGO, people would immediately associate it with ‘non-profit’,” said Gao Shan, “but this is a half-blind look at NGO. As a matter of fact we should judge it by how it makes profit, and where the profit goes down to.”
The projects that One-plus-one carries out are of significance in two respects—integrating technological progress into service on one hand, and provoking the consciousness of the disabled to get back to the mainstream society on the other. The success of social benefit enterprise is sure to push the NGO cause one-step further in terms of funding, technology and influence.
The radio programs of One-plus-one are free of charge for now. However, some other programs still under way, given their entertainment value, will be officially cast into market in future. “Our project is still at the planning stage. So we need financial and technological support from the society. Considering the complexity of the factors that decide the proceedings of the project, we need to figure out a holistic picture and a slow-but-steady development strategy,” explained a project manager.
Harmonious Co-existence—Tackling Arguments in Development Routes
After numerous rounds of rigorous check and assessment, One-plus-one won the contract with London-based Big Lottery Fund on the project named “Engaging China” in May 2006 and later cooperated with BBC-World Service Trust. With efforts from all parties, the project ended up being successful in reaching preset goals at the end of May 2008.
“When the project was taken over, different voices were heard from some NGOs,” said Gao Shan, “we didn’t dispute in public or give a direct response, because we know the development of a civil society needs different voices. And such difference reflects the inevitable outcome of different development routes. The bigger challenges are how to face ourselves, how to face the disabled group, and how to improve our abilities and fulfil our value.”
In fact, the dispute is just a miniature of greater disaccord among NGOs. NGOs are still trapped in fund shortage and have-no-say dilemma albeit in an improved hardware and software environment. Notional split-up, intensified by unrestrained scramble for limited resources, has grown into a great force that rips them apart.
Upon that Gao Shan reckoned, “every NGO has its unique advantage and development orientation. So above all is mutual respect. Differences should be allowed and of course, a reasonable scale of competition will step up the progress of the entire cause….We hope to relieve misunderstandings through communication and discussion.”
Multiple Possibilities—1+1 Has No Definite Answer
“1+1﹥2 if cooperation is counted in; 1+1=1 given mutual integration; or it could be 1+1+1 which stands for further extension within the society,” replied Gao Shan when asked the origin of the name One-plus-one, “Don’t always figure 1+1 equals 2. Just like we hope people would not stick to an old impression of the disabled”
One-plus-one is still youthful, enjoying its glories and dreams as much as it takes on pressure and challenges—just as China’s social benefit cause is going through. In the long march to prosperity, there must be thorns and storms, but every footprint they leave brings them closer to the destination.
Footnote:
Beijing One-plus-one International Exchange Center is a non-profit organization established and registered by two IT professionals with disabilities in March 2006. Its routine operation is run together by disabled and healthy staff. It is now a member of China Association for NGO Cooperation.
Where Respect is Derived: An Interview to Beijing Hong Dandan Edu-Culture Communication
Long depressed in the dark of social discrimination, the handicapped people are so vulnerable to cold eyes and scorns, so feared to lose dignity, so curled up to fend off injustice that they forget how to open their hearts to the world that has already opened its arms. Blind pursuit of respect, as is the problem for many blind, has distorted them. As the solution, we need to show them our care, and enlighten them how to gain respect, not to beg or to defy.
As usual, the cinema—branded “Eyes of Heart”—was crowded with old patrons and new faces on Saturday morning. Besides the blind friends from inside central Beijing, journalists from all fields of media joined the party-like movie lecture. Leading media companies, such as CCTV and Sohu.com among others, wrenched the small quadrate yard into spotlight and flashguns. The lecture was hosted by a renowned CCTV compere who had professed to serve as a volunteer, but was still surrounded by fans begging for a signature.
Over the past two years, the cinema has been seeing people in and off every weekend just as it did that day. Later on to the mid-noon when the crowd was dismissed, the cinema was back into tranquility with its staff’s bewildered thoughts.
Not until then could Wang Weili and Zheng Xiaojie, the couple responsible for Beijing Hong Dandan Edu-Culture Communication Centre (shorter as Hong Dandan), afford the time for interview. Deeply rooted in my mind was the meet with Ms. Zheng during the 2 year anniversary of the cinema when I could have offered a hand to the blind who needed help in walking but out of selfishness and timidity I didn’t. The sour remorse doubled my respect for the couple and pushed me to ask my first question: How should an NPO worker treat the weak from the individual-to-individual sense?
“Love and care” was the reply. Yes, the overused cliché rings hollow to some, but to them, it compacts the deepest meaning into one simple phrase—yet how? How could the phrase spearhead the voluntary acts into concord? Simple as it may sound, practicing it is another thing. “There must be a proper manner in practice. The “look-down-on-you” manner, which means treating the weak like children, and lashing out too much care and protection, may lead to reliance or resistance among them,” explained Mr. Wang, “while the “look-up-to-you” attitude that sees ever bit of their progress as a great achievement puts us in the wrong place. Equality is the key.”
Attitude is the first lesson that a volunteer should learn. Undeniably, differences exsist among people. Just as illustrated by Mr. Wang, it is no use turning a blind eye to the differences between healthy and handicapped people. The courage to face the differences is the first step to reduce them.
However, just because the volunteers have set straight their attitude doesn’t mean their relationship with the helped is sure to be favorably addressed. How to help the blind “face themselves”, for example, is a challenge Hong Dandan has to come up against.
Some of the handicapped are averse to admit the disadvantages compared with healthy people, and even revolted by the term “the weak” that is conventionally used to describe them. They believe that they can do whatever healthy people can. Worse than that is the inferiority complex deep down inside their hearts that forces them not to face the reality. As to this problem, Ms Zheng said, “the blind people may not realize that Hong Dandan has its own institution that can not be changed to cater to a certain individual. For example, when they are trained here, they are not given special treatment just because they lost sight. By sticking to our institution and principles, we try to nurture healthy mentality in the blind people.”
But it bears no fruit to lay all the responsibility upon one organization in guiding the handicapped. Then how could an individual help heal the rift between the healthy and the handicapped?
Mutual respect is the footstone of any rapport. But the connotation of “respect” brings out two sides of a coin—dignity and vanity. For any individual, including the handicapped, it has to be recognized that too much competition spirit would erode dignity into vanity.
In the opera “the blind” co-produced by Hong Dandan and Director Lin Zhaohua, the life of the human race was visualized with that of the blind. It showed concerns for the present and future of humans and more significantly, cares for the blind. However, even such a humanitarian production could invite suspicion of “discriminating the blind”.
Long depressed in the dark of social discrimination, the handicapped people are so vulnerable to cold eyes and scorns, so feared to lose dignity, so curled up to fend off injustice that they forget how to open their hearts to the world that has already opened its arms. Blind pursuit of respect, as is the problem for many blind, has distorted them. As the solution, we need to show them our care, and enlighten them how to gain respect, not to beg or to defy.
So rises the question—has the mass media fulfilled its obligation of educating the handicapped what is respect, and what is dignity? Regrettably no. And that’s why Mr. Wang, a frequent guest at CCTV interview, is still keen on joining in-depth TV talk shows. Diverting the society’s focus to the mentality of special groups may look like a grand vision to an outsider, yet just a basic attitude to an NPO professional.
In a world that information spreads faster and broader than ever before, that a compliment can be easily misinterpreted to a condemnation, that entertainment prevails over enlightenment, do we have the calm to ponder what to do for the blind? That’s a question to be considered for NPOs and especially for the mass media.
Many NPOs are on good terms with people they help, but still many others fail to cope with such relationship. Sometimes their zealous help upsets the helped. All assistance, be it physical or mental, should be built on respect. Giving no account to the feelings of the helped is itself a sign of disrespect, which could be put down to ineffective or even negative communication.
Respect is derived from communication; after all, humans are social animals.
A World in a Village —A Reporter’s Diary
You belong to the world you are living in, which you may not be able to change; but whatever you are, there is a world that belongs to you. And Tongzhou Care Service Center is such a world for the children and for their mother—Chang Meng.
May 10th—the day long-awaited over the past 20 days. Reportedly a rainy day. But the hilarious sunlight that seeped into the bedroom in the early morning was still dizzying. So much so that the many offensively serious, sensitive and searching questions I had prepared were somewhat blurred or erased out of mind for the moment.
Fortunately, I would not be alone, but had two ladies, Liang Yuqing and Han Jinping, in company. When I saw Liang at the subway station, she was painfully elbowing her way forward against the crowd, with a bundle of Readers magazine in hand that she later said was a gift for the children and the staff in the care center.
Minutes later Han arrived.
“Are you ready?” was her hello.
“Well….uh….yeah…” I murmured with a shivering voice. Nervous and anxious, I stepped onto the train.
The train speeded ahead towards Tongzhou District, leaving behind high-rise skyscrapers, jam-packed roads and other dazzling landmarks of modern civilization. Farther away from the bustling world, we were headed closer to the reclusive world that belonged to Tongzhou Care Service Center (TCSC in short). Like many other NPOs, TCSC settled in a far-flung area. So far that the whole journey turned into a harrowing adventure. Trapped in a broad vacant land, we wandered and wondered which way to go. After a weary search for the bus stop with the help of passers-by, we were taken aback by what we pulled through in the bus we’d been praying for. As crammed as a sardine can, the vehicle bumped along like a ship in the storm. For us the earlier unease about the interview had then been replaced with eagerness to reach the destination. Like a light in the tunnel, we caught a sight of the road sign—Nei Junzhuang. No sooner had the bus pulled over than we swept off. As bus disappeared into the dust, we got back to ourselves before realizing that we were in the middle of nowhere—we got lost again! But this time we had no one that could help. Nothing but disturbing silence….
Turning back along a dirt road, we came to a small village and there we had TCSC in sight. Exhaustedly staring at the gate, I began to doubt whether or not I could face up to the hapless but innocent children, when suddenly a beaming face showed up from behind the gate. “Here to see Director Chang Meng?” asked a man of 30-something, “come with me.”
Soon we got to Chang Meng’s office. Chang Meng, chief director of TCSC, was awarded “Top Ten Charity Celebrities in China” for her incessant 23 years of charity services.
“You guys will talk with Ms. Chang,” said Han Jinping to Liang Yuqing and me, “she’s been waiting for you.” Blank-minded, we froze there, as if still unable to sober from the wearing journey.
“Come on, son,” from the office came a gentle voice, “help me check out what’s wrong with the computer and the printer.” Startled at first by the unusual manner of “greeting”, we went speechless and motionless. But her “surprise attack” worked out—our nervousness was melting away. Having noticed our tension, she told Meng Yan, her “little secretary”, to show us around the sprawling center.
Meng Yan, a thin little girl, was in her third year at elementary school. There were a lot of stories about her—all centered around her miserable life. Now she looked healthy and happy. Her name, Meng Yan (“dreaming wild goose” translated from Chinese), an equally poetic name, was bestowed by Chang Meng (“unfading dream” in English). The little girl buoyantly showed us the meeting room and introduced the photos hanging on the wall. Then we went on to the dining room, the laundry room, as well as the dorms for the children and the teachers as she spelled out every detail about the places we visited.
It was Saturday. So some children were brought home. But the rest of them still showcased what the center had been working on. The children had different problems:
One boy suffering from MBD would laugh and say hello and repeatedly shake hands with anyone who looked him in the eye. Another boy of autism was bending over the desk with a content smile. According to his teacher, he got a full score in reciting the multiplication pithy formula. Not far from him, another kid was giggling all the time. Also in the center there were retarded children, handicapped children, and children diagnostic of aphasia, etc. Fortunately these children lived in a fine environment with clean sheets, lovely cabinets and most prideworth of all, a beautifully dressed dining room where the warm and bright sunshine could drop in through the ceiling window.
To my knowledge, there are organizations specialized in autism such as Beijing Stars and Rain Education Institute, or in mental retard like Huiling Mental Retard Service Center , or in physical disability. However, once realizing how TCSC combines services for different categories of handicaps and how it keeps on the run to earn the children as respectable and comfortable a life as that of a normal child, you will be moved to tears by Chang Meng and her colleagues. At this moment, words are the faintest expression of emotion.
At noon, we were invited to dine with the children and the working staff. Stir-fried vegetable (planted by themselves) and fried cauliflowers with pork—simple but delicious and nutritious—were the children’s favorite cuisine and biggest enjoyment. The food was tempting for the children that it could be used as a big prize. In order to encourage a well-behaved little girl of aphasia to speak, Chang Meng gave her a loaf of pork and asked her to call “mama”. Gathering all her strength, the lovely girl squeezed a slurred sound of voice. “Professionally, this is called positive reinforcement,” said Chang Meng peacefully.
After lunch, we played soccer with the children. Looking at these angelic faces, I sank in a mixed mood, wondering: Do they have dreams? What would their life be like in future? Till when could Chang Meng take care of these children long alienated from the main stream? And what might happen to them once leaving the center?
“If I’m dead, I’ll be free from these concerns. But as long as I’m still alive, I must live with them,” said Chang Meng lightly, “the other day I ran into a car accident. I was thinking if my life ended any moment, I’d be gone with no regrets. But it seems that even God couldn’t let me drop these kids. As for future, there should be someone to take over.” Fearless was the word that instantly popped up in my mind to describe her attitude towards life.
Chang Meng told us that the original drive that pushed her into charity was simply the gratitude towards people who helped her through the most difficult time of her life after a divorce with her ex-husband. As a single mother, she decided to do something for the unfortunate children and their mothers.
As to the rumors widely spread over the internet that she graduated from Renmin University, she responded, “as a mother of so many children, I have to learn different professional knowledge. So I studied psychology at Beijing Normal University. In order to call for more social attention and support, I learned writing at Luxun Research Academy. Now I’m a free writer of a magazine. Also I learned photography at Renmin university to exhibit a better picture and memory of our center.
“I don’t study for myself,” she added, “I do for my kids.”
Now she is already an expert equipped with all professional skills to train the children in the center. Some day, she told us, she will introduce her experience in video discs, a popular practice in some foreign countries.
Her professionalism stood out in every respect. “For curtains, go to large hotels because they spend regular time on the disposal of used stuff,” she sounded particularly eloquent when talking about operational experience, “But if you want social support, you’ll need a media platform. Other than that you need good ideas.”
10:30 Call from Han Jinping saying they are arriving
11:30 Han Jinping, Liang Yuqing and Liu Shaofeng arrive
12:30 Lunch: stir-fried vegetable, fried cauliflowers with pork
….
Chang Meng had a note-taking habit. Just as is shown above, she took down every single detail about the visitors including their names, contact information, and even special skills, and would, if possible, attach photos in the delicate-looking notebook. She proudly dubbed it a “marker tradition” that distinguished her organization from others. Actually she hid other intentions in this practice. First, with the information listed in the book, they could easily track someone if they needed his or her help. Second, the note was a convincing evidence of what they did, clearing off doubts and suspicions that widely exist in China’s NPO landscape.
Upon departure, we could not shift our eyes from the children, their great mother and the tightly-knit family. They had sneaked in our peaceful life. And from that day on, the picture of a tranquil village permeated with love and laugh would recur to me again and again. For in that village a woman created a world.
Beijing Maple: A mix of simplicity and complexity
“Since its birth,” said Ms Wang Xingjuan, 78-year-old founder of Beijing Maple, slowly and softly caressing her silver hairs back and forth, “Beijing Maple has been keeping its head down on securing women’s endowed rights, arousing their awareness of independence, and helping them keep up with social changes. Of course, our ultimate goal is to accomplish sex equality. ”
Despite its ups and downs, Beijing Maple has not only survived but thrived on its dream. Twenty years is doubtlessly a legendary number in China’s NPO history, not to mention the number of its beneficiaries.
John Wood, founder of Room to Read, talked about women in his autobiography Leave Microsoft to Change the World:
Women lead a tougher life in many developing countries. Usually out of cultural stereotype and male-dominant tradition, their voices are ignored, and their opinions (and more often than not, their life) considered insignificant.
Such inequality, worsened by indifference of the society, has never brought Beijing Maple Psychological Counseling Center for Women (Beijing Maple in short) to its kneel in the past two decades. And it’s the persistent pursuit of wiping out these inequalities that has pulled it through thick and thin.
“Since its birth,” said Ms Wang Xingjuan, 78-year-old founder of Beijing Maple, slowly and softly caressing her silver hairs back and forth, “Beijing Maple has been keeping its head down on securing women’s endowed rights, arousing their awareness of independence, and helping them keep up with social changes. Of course, our ultimate goal is to accomplish sex equality. ”
Despite its ups and downs, Beijing Maple has not only survived but thrived on its dream. Twenty years is doubtlessly a legendary number in China’s NPO history, not to mention the number of its beneficiaries.
“Only unprecedented programs could be funded.”
Funding shortage is a common problem for both big and small NPOs. So the question—how to raise more funds to support more programs and to help more people—comes atop. More profoundly, grass-root NPOs are not granted official registrations in China; so governmental funding is a no-go area for them. . According to Ms Wang, Beijing Maple, having financed itself mainly out of civil funds, has not received a single fund from the government.
So comes the challenge—the funding application procedure. As strict as public bidding in the commercial sector, funding has to go through brutal competition. “Beijing maple has been trying its utmost to think out programs that keep up with and, even one step further, keep ahead of others,” explained Ms. Wang, “because only unprecedented programs could be funded.” Accordingly the essential of NPO operation is not money but programs and talents, with which money may flood in.
Win-win Between Volunteers and NPO
According to Ms. Hou Zhiming, office director of Beijing Maple, Beijing Maple has been built on its respect and research on volunteers since establishment. Over the past 20 years, 200 plus volunteers have been absorbed into programs of all kind, adding up into a compelling force and resource that braced Beijing Maple’s growth.
Beijing Maple insists on a win-win policy for volunteers and the organization itself, as was introduced by Ms. Hou. “We need volunteers’ service as much as they need personal development in our organization,” she continued, “however, we have a maturely strict procedure in recruiting volunteers. After a four-round barrier of application, interview, training and internship, averagely only 20 of the initial 70 plus applicants could be qualified. And this seemingly rigid operation in human resources is actually kind of a must in psychological service.”
In volunteers’ eyes, Beijing Maple is a platform to give love and care, rather than simple labor. Just as love-sharing is of irreplaceable value to charity, so is the self-improvement of volunteers to an NPO. In Beijing Maple, volunteers are fully equipped with the rights to participate in decision-making. They are invited to program planning conferences, and if interested, would be asked to write program applications. Also they are exposed to financial reports, annual plans and the like. More worthwhile to mention is their engagement when the organization is stuck in trouble: more often than not they contribute to problem solutions together with top brass. What’s more, some of them could be sent abroad for further study. But only the luckiest enjoy the opportunity. To cater to most of others, a monthly symposium is held inviting experts from Hong Kong, Taiwan or abroad to present lectures on psychological assistance and other professional skills.
Numbers speak louder than words. Till last year Beijing Maple hotline had 384 volunteers professionally trained in 13 divided periods, of whom up to 64 dedicated five years in Beijing Maple, and 23 devoted more than 10 years. The majority of these volunteers came from universities, hospitals, publishing houses and psychological consultation institutions.
Rights endowing is a dynamic balance, not just a mirage
Since the “social work” concept found its root in China 20 years ago, rights endowing has been repeatedly broadcasted in the circle of NPOs. One of the pioneers in rights endowing research and practice, Beijing Maple has always been an active force in advocating women’s endowed rights as a way to realize sex equality.
Years of observation and practice has filtered through to an in-depth insight over endowed rights. “Time has changed,” said Ms Hou, “so has the tradition that men work outside while women take care of housework. Women nowadays have a bigger-than-ever say in political, economical and social fields.
“However,” she went on after a brief break, as if pondering what to say next, “it appears self-conflicting that given more economic responsibilities, women would have to put aside their roles as a mother, a wife or a daughter, which breaks the traditional balance in a family. But this argument builds on a misplaced presupposition—that women are indisputably bound with family affairs. As a matter of fact, women have rights to their own happiness. In the long run, women would to a great extent, once finding their own happiness and confidence, free men from pressures, which reaches another balance. This is just our ‘dynamic balance theory’ !” Then burst a fit of chuckling.
“So rights endowing is not just a mirage,” she concluded in the end, “when endowing rights to a certain powerless group, you have to take people around them into account. It’s a transition from one balance to another.”
Simple as it sounds, it’s quite complex in practice. And the well-matched mix of simplicity and complexity all comes down to 20 years of regretless hard work. With the groundwork laid through these years, Beijing Maple is gathering power as it’s eyeing the day women in China really become “half the sky”.
“Beijing in Action”: How We Take Action
Beijing in Action (abbreviated as BIA hereinafter), an NPO specialized in providing aids to rural immigrant workers in terms of legal, occupational and psychological consultations, has attracted over 400 volunteers (but only six are all-time staff workers) within less than two years. Thanks to its solidarity and executive force, it gets to where it is. “Love lies in action”, a resounding slogan it boasts, is a reflection of how much it weighs actions. To this end, a stable and well-performing internal structure is the priority issue. Though not a master key for all NPOs, the managerial structure of BIA may well be a showpiece for its counterparts.
Inspired by Hongkong’s NPO development experience, BIA features a supervisory board, the members of which are charged only with monitoring obligation rather than routine management. Theoretically and hopefully, the board may keep the organization from being controlled or used for personal benefits, securing its public and non-profit-making characteristics. Furthermore, being a small team of just six all-time volunteers, it gets round working simultaneously on several programs by lining up the tasks based on urgency degree and then getting them done one at a time.
Concerted efforts prop up high efficiency. BIA has so far extended job, legal and psychological service to more than 4,200 rural workers, answered over 8160 calls on help lines, hosted as many as 86 public events and involved at least 2680 people in these events. A cutting-edge “the helped being the helpful” model was experimented and successfully implemented in these activities. “In essence, NPO is representative of a notion,” said Mr. Han De, administrative officer of BIA, “the message we want to deliver is that people who help others are also helping themselves. And those who receive help can also be helpful to others.” Here in this context, rural workers, though commonly regarded as the powerless and the helped, can virtually be volunteers helping others. For example, a rural worker learned a game in an outdoor activity; then next time he would teach another participant the same game. For the volunteers, they may communicate in an equal atmosphere with each other and with rural workers over concerned issues—the new labor law that took effect in 2008, for instance. Such interactions bring out benefits. For one thing rural workers may walk away from the shadowy sense of inferiority and self-isolation. For the other hand, the volunteers get closer to the rural workers they serve and gain a better view of their life.
In addition, BIA formulated an “immediate volunteering system” to balance against the liquidity and instability of rural workers community. One may attend any interested activity at short notice and register as a volunteer (which is out of his/her own will). Progressively the group of volunteers grows big and gains weight.
Besides its managerial advantages, BIA has solidified itself through a triangular operational model—“on-the-spot activities, BIA hotline and BIA online”, which are respectively aimed at sending signals to people who have joined BIA, who have the will to approach BIA and who have yet to know about BIA. With that, it is hoped more volunteers may gather around and take actions.
Hu Xinyu: Renew Mind before Renewing Walls
Within Xilou Hutong, one of the hundreds of fameless (if not nameless) hutongs in Chaoyang District of Beijing, slumbers a cypress-dotted courtyard. The courtyard, being home to a couple of historical relics protection organizations, is permeated with an air of knowledgeability and responsibility.
At the twilight of an April day, we strolled towards the mystique courtyard, with a hope to visit Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center (CHP).
Previous to the interview of Mr.Hu Xinyu, director in chief of CHP, his monk-like image—carefree and unemotional—loomed in my head, out of the assumption that whoever chooses so peaceful a place to work should be equally peaceful, until a conversation with Mr.Hu, who turned out to be a careful and graceful gentleman. And in no way is CHP built on sand by a bunch of illusionary youngsters, as is misunderstood by some.
Charity—from faith to practice
A volunteer at NPPCN, who once worked with CHP, took down what Mr.Hu called ‘dilemma’ faced by China’s NPO organizers:
“At present, most NPO organizers and volunteers are still faith-driven. Their awareness of responsibility pushes them to be excessively concerned and visionary. So overhead hangs a big question mark for all NPOs—how to turn passion into practice.”
Just as his peers in NPO fields, Mr.Hu used to struggle with such confusions at first. “The most difficult part of NPO is the balance between fairness and efficiency. We were only registered as a non-business organization in 2003, not a profit-making business,” he said, “so we are under great pressure from outside. And it’s real hard to gain an efficient and practicable approach to communicate with other social entities.”
What Mr.Hu spoke out mirrors the essential problem for an NPO. It is far from enough to work with faith, and there is a long way to go for a fantasy to become a fact. In the field of cultural heritage protection, NPOs always have to take blames from all interest groups. For example, people are divided in opposite groups around what to do with ancient buildings. Those who stand up against knocking them down pour blames on cultural heritage protection organizations for failing in conciliation and mediation, while people who stand oppositely urge them to stay out of the trouble. So how could those conflicts be moderated? What should be removed or preserved? After years of exploration CHP has found a way out—to appeal to laws. First of all, it set its own rules and regulations, which are implied in its logo. “The outer profile of our logo is quadrate, suggesting a law-based principle. With that we have a ground and we can hold the line when mediating or even disputing on protection issues. The inner profile is round, indicating flexibility in practice. We take various means to do our job, such as lectures, media communication, or even street work,” explained Mr.Hu at large. When asked if the laws in effect were specific enough to guide the judgment on the removal or preservation of an old building, Mr.Hu responded with a firm voice:
“Yes! But it’s unrealistic to hand everybody a law brochure. So one of our jobs is to inform them of the red line for heritage protection. In fact your confusion is quite typical and informative. You are not clear about the laws. That means we still have a lot to do!”
“It matters more to arouse awareness than to repair buildings”
CHP has its own specifications on the function of the organization:
Collect and sort out relevant files. “For instance we can share academic papers and books online and offline,” said Mr.Hu, “we have a mini-library here that houses books donated from all over world.
Educate people through forums, trainings and lectures.
Build up personal and structural competence.
Plan on specific solutions.
Select problems to address.
With these guidelines, an industrial chain of cultural heritage protection is shaped, compacting ‘protection’ both conceptually and practically.
“Of course, what we are doing now is ‘software repair’ rather than ‘hardware repair’ (which could be our business in future). For now we need to tell the public what and how to protect, which makes more sense than persuading them to repair the buildings,” he said, “more often than not, we have to arouse public awareness to contribute to heritage protection, just like planting a seed. When the seed grows into a tree, people will be pulled together.”
Another concern for CHP is the performance effect it gains from its programs. Performance is widely seen as a weakness for grass-root organizations that are distracted by too wide a spectrum of programs and gathering little fruit. To tackle this problem, Mr.Hu stated that they had already pieced together the programs into a system. “Most of our programs in operation are in Beijing, considering that it has the largest number of buildings and may serve as a model for future work,” he explained, “But it’s impossible to rest assured of all problems with only a single program. Let’s say…the program called ‘The Beijingers’ is a key to another program—‘Media Training Saloon’. The door-by-door interviews spun off an initial database that were analyzed and compared. For example, we made a contrast between Beijing’s hutongs in 2005 and 2007 to learn how quickly they vanished. These data were afterwards used as materials in the media training program that invited influential media representatives such as Southern Weekend, Beijing Youth Daily and Chinese National Geography Magazine. In essence, they got the knowledge and we got their readers.”
Another two programs, namely “Beijing Siheyuan Renovation Training” and “Hutong Culture” were aimed at the residents who lived in hutongs. “We chose those whose dwelling area per capita surpassed 14 square meters as the supporting subjects. We tried to make them realize the houses would be devalued if stripped of their history, and help them with the renovation without ruining original style,” said Mr.Hu excitedly, “in this process, we were melting the awareness of heritage protection into practice.”
In addition to those four cultural heritage protection programs, CHP has completed the first stage of the program “Memos of Ethnic Dai’s Culture” and is working on a book introducing their culture to the public, covering the oral history of their villages and other respects of their culture.
On how to deliver a louder voice to the society, Mr.Hu replied, “if you haven’t heard our ‘voice’, it means we are not doing the best we should. And we also need backup from all walks of life, including a considerable number of volunteers.”
Heritage protection is under way, and it’s a long, long way.
Bolo: Love-idea=Love for Idea + Idea of Love
In the early spring of the year 2008, a seed of love sprouted in Beijing. Love-idea, a small charity organization gathered by a group of life-loving idea creators, is now opening its arms to a grand wish:
Positioned as a special charity channel, Love-idea is poised to turn the ideas of urban residents into eye-catchy products via rural workforce. Those products are then sold to small markets of cities with the earnings returning to the rural areas. With that, a small chain of idea industry (city-country-city) is forged out.
At the first meet with Bolo, founder of Love-idea, she was participating in a documentary salon. She was short-haired and dressed in a black blouse. The silk scarf glittered around her white smooth neck, splashing a stylish smell, and highlighting a brisk and bright profile. But an in-depth conversation led me to her thoughtful side. It is, perhaps, her ambivalence of characters that gifted her with the power to combine love and ideas.
Attracted by her delicate shell eardrops, I asked her if she had any experience in art design, or interest in traditional folklore. To my great surprise, she had never learned or worked in art industry; but her initiative for the NOP cause came partially out of her affinity for the traditional folklore. The model of Love-idea is, in a strict sense, an idea, which was inspired during a visit (which was launched by “Heavy Backpack”, a volunteer organization) to Shuoyang of Guangxi Province in May, 2007. Bolo, being a member of the visit, witnessed a heart-breaking scene:
A woman in fifties was quietly sitting in a gloomy room, sewing an Indian sari glimmering in the dark. But beyond her knowledge was that the sari that took weeks to finish but yielded only 20 RMB was tagged with an exorbitant price in the market as a handicraft. The majority of the value was snatched by agents-in-between.
Stirred up by the obvious exploitations, Bolo established Love-idea with a view to helping those impoverished rural laborers. For them, there was no end in sight for a higher income. So Bolo was determined to save the extra rural workforce from being a money spinner.
Layman as she is in idea creation, Bolo has many friends in art industry. They can afford the time and energy to create something new. And more importantly, they have the aspiration to seek for a way directly out of life to spread their love, which is above anything else to be an idea-creator of love.
“We have a teammate nicknamed ‘fan of fun’ who makes lamps from used zips. That’s a lot of fun and provides not only fine works but also an environment-friendly notion,” said Bolo with a balmy smile. “Of course, love crosses over borders,” she highlights, “I hope more people (not just designers) could take care of things around them.” Self-improvement and helping others are not restricted to art industry; the idea-creation of artifacts is nothing but a form of charity. “For example, we once sold the poems collected in the idea bazaar as a means to fund charity,” explained Bolo. From her illustrations, what Love-idea tries to deliver seems to be the concept that even those who know nothing about design could feed back to the society with ideas.
“What is charity? Can we count what generates value for the society as a charity in the broad sense?” Bolo, with a deeper understanding of charity, sticks to her own definition. In her mind, charity implies far more than the name itself, or any form of it; it concerns substantive elements such as love, responsibility and social value. “Take a business for example,” she added, “what seems to only benefit itself virtually benefits the society. So businesses can be broadly defined as charity.” Those narrowly-defined NGOs have shouldered their commitments but may have followed a wrong route. Therefore what Love-idea can and will do is only “do something and do it as well as possible, however insignificant it may be.” Besides, according to Bolo, it is better to put ourselves in an equal status with those we help than to override them.
Love-idea organized an activity named “Face-to-face with Ethnic Yi” in mid-April, which was aimed at providing an interactive platform for Ethnic Yi and urban citizens interested in ethnic handicrafts to communicate and socialize. And hopefully some opportunities of development may be available to the people of Ethnici Yi. Apart from that, the website of Love-idea is being constructed. The wiki-model network platform will be used to deliver missions of love, which ranges from a design of a recycle bag to a proposal for folklore preservation.
Creating ideas with love, the practice advocated by Love-idea, is more of a life philosophy. It could splatter in all walks of urban life, filling our life with love and fun, and passing the warmth to our rural people. For love and idea shall never rest in peace.
