A new official study rates the transparency of charitable organizations in China at 33 out of a possible 100. The China Charity and Donation Information Center, under the Ministry of Civil Affairs, said that of the 1,000 charitable organizations surveyed, only 8.2 percent met minimum transparency standards. Eighty-four percent of the public surveyed expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of transparency.
At the end of the third quarter 2011, there were 450,000 charitable organizations registered in China. The China Charity and Donation Information Center selected 1,000 organizations to analyze their levels of transparency in the areas of finance and operations. The results were evaluated in four areas, including completeness and timeliness of their data publications.
The survey showed that on a scale of 1 to 100, only 82 out of 1,000 had a passing grade of 60, and the average score was 33.
Of all areas examined, financial transparency received the lowest scores. Only 356 out of 1,000 organizations published an annual budget summary or excerpt. A mere 80 published the entire year-end financial report. The average score of the 1,000 organizations was only 3.1 out of 15 points. In other areas, such as fund-raising, information assistance, and financial operation, the average score was 6.3 out of 19.
Problems with China’s charities, many of them affiliated with the regime, came to the public’s attention last June with the “Guo Meimei scandal.” A young woman named Guo Meimei stated on her blog that she was “commercial general manager” at China Red Cross Chamber of Commerce, and posted pictures of herself with expensive sports cars and a closet full of designer clothing. She later said she worked for an affiliate, not directly with Red Cross.
A Jinghua Times article on Aug. 26 stated that, according to the China Charity and Donation Information Center, after the scandal involving the Red Cross Society of China broke in June, public confident in charitable organizations dropped dramatically. Between March and May, charitable organizations received a total of 6.26 billion yuan in donations. Between June and August, total donations dropped to 840 million yuan, a reduction of 86.6 percent.
In July, renowned philanthropist and President of Hong Kong-based Treasure Auction Limited, Inc., Mr. Yu Pang-lin, said that his biggest project was to increase transparency in charitable givings. “I have to personally deliver the funds to the farmers, even though it’s more physically demanding. Otherwise one million yuan won’t be able to achieve one million yuan worth of results. I don’t know how much it really accomplishes. Maybe half of it will disappear. This is not a rare occurrence.”
Mr. Yu said that even if one wants to be a philanthropist in China, poor management of charitable organizations sometimes leads to disappointment in the results.
Read the original Chinese article.
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