Girl sold herself for mom: Dilemma of Internet charity
(Southern Metropolis Daily/zonaeu)
Updated: 2005-11-07 09:39

After the Chen Yi incident, Yi Lianggan had some reflections. He said that he wished that there was organization that would monitor civilian donations and publish the accounts regularly. If everything were transparently made public, the principals would be hurt in this manner.

The reality is the civilian charitable organizations are weak. At the end of 2004, the Chinese charitable organizations received 5 billion yuan, which is equivalent to 0.05% of the 2004 GDP. The comparable figure is 2.17% in the United States, 0.88% in the United Kingdom and 0.77% in Canada.

When Bafenzhai participated in Internet assistance campaigns, he found out that many detailed problems could not be solved. For example, what happened if the recipient got more in donations than actually spent even as others did not get enough. Between the donors and recipients, there is no intermediary organization that served as a reservoir to direct the donations to the most needy persons. Thus, he wanted to establish a nationally recognized charitable organization to help many more people.

He consulted the law and found out that charitable acts are governed legally by the "The Public Interest Business Donations Laws," which refers solely to "public interest society groups" receiving donations. It is impossible for private citizens to establish such an organization. Bafenzhai believes that the absence of charitable organizations caused the Chen Yi tragedy, and Yi Liangwei was a victim because of the lack of a system of charitable organizations.

Also, Bafenzhai mentioned that even the quasi-official charitable organizations are not being adequately monitored. The most typical case is the Youth Foundation transferring the Project Hope donations to make investments. Apart from setting up laws and tax exemptions to nurture charitable organizations in China, there ought to be a system to monitor charitable organizations.

The United States has a regulated system for overseeing charitable organizations. The non-government organization National Charity Information Bureau set the standards for charitable organizations. They will evaluate every two to four years and the results are disclosed to the public through the media. The charitable organizations are therefore very transparent and every citizen can check the accounts. This type of monitoring system has proven to be highly effective. In the United States, charity has become a part of popular culture.

Bafenzhai said that the netizens are very pure and kind-hearted. In order to encourage this kind-heartedness and protect the fragile trust, there has to be mature civilian charitable organizations with effective monitoring. Everything that he is doing is intended to direct Chinese civilian charity towards regularization. "As long as you disclose the information truthfully and you face the public honestly, the enthusiasm of the netizens will continue to rise higher," said Bafenzhai.