At least USD 3 million in donations will be channelled to social development projects in China this year through a “Give2Asia” facility created by the Asia Foundation to link North American donors with Asian grant seekers.

China is the strongest growth area for the facility, which the Asia Foundation first established in 2000. Disbursements began in China in 2003 with a modest USD 166,000, reached USD 1.2 million in 2005 and doubled to USD 2.35 million in 2006. More than 70 China projects are currently funded through the scheme.

China Program Director, Xiao Rong (肖蓉), describes Give2Asia as a “customer service organisation” that facilitates philanthropic flows by finding opportunities for donors who want to make social investments in China but who lack specialised knowledge of the field. Give2Asia, says Xiao, offers an expert network that identifies projects which meet donor criteria, carries out “due diligence” to make sure the projects are constructive and that grantees have the capacity to implement them, and then monitors project implementation.

According to Xiao these services were at first used mainly by family foundations and private individuals—notably, Chinese Americans—but there has since been a marked rise in corporate clients, including Johnson & Johnson, Pepsi Co, Starbucks, Cisco, Synopsis, Target.

Now, Xiao says, Give2Asia hopes to do more “outreach” among Chinese grant-seekers, including grassroots NGOs, encouraging them to find potential North American supporters who can use the Give2Asia channel to deliver tax-deductible donations legally and with adequate monitoring.

Portfolio highlights

Typical of early donors is the Little Dragon Foundation, established by Chinese American, Dr. Carter Tseng. The foundation began by supporting a scholarship programme at Tianjin’s Nankai University. It has since donated to four more projects, mainly in education but also to support the learning and performance of traditional guqin (顾琴) music. Lee Kai-fu, CEO of Google (China) has also used the Give2Asia channel for contributions to China Youth Development Foundation programs for college students.

According to Xiao, Chinese people who have settled overseas are often interested in “giving back” to their country of origin. But, she points out, some of them have not lived in China for many years, so Give2Asia also tries to “educate” potential donors as to present social needs. Microfinance and vocational education are among the areas that Give2Asia is currently recommending for support, and it is working with Chinese partners to design pilot interventions in these areas.

Some donors start with clear priorities and identify prospective partners before turning to Give2Asia for fine-tuning and grant management support. This was the case with Starbucks, which had identified the Soong Qing Ling Foundation as the partner for a USD 1.5 million grant to support rural teacher training, a scholarship program in 15 teacher training universities in China, and libraries 300 rural primary schools. In this case, Xiao says, “What we do is work with the China Soong Qing Ling Foundation to make sure they have a good project design.” Starbucks plans to donate a total of USD 5 million for education projects in China during the period 2006-10.

Starbucks also wanted to support work in safe water supply and related public education. Give2Asia identified the China Women’s Development Foundation as an implementing partner and worked with the foundation to design an appropriate project. This includes a capacity building component in which Give2Asia will design and deliver project management training for 300 staff from 14 project sites in Yunnan, Chongqing, Ningxia, Guangxi and Hainan. The USD 300,000 project also involves training of community trainers in health issues related to water and sanitation.

Since 2004 Johnson & Johnson has also worked with Give2Asia on a number of public health projects. These have included support for training of nurses in prevention of mother-child transmission of HIV, work to strengthen hospital administration, and pilot projects in schools to identify and manage Attention Deficit Disorder. In addition, the company channels support through Give2Aisa to the Stars and Rain (星星雨) Education Institute for Children with Autism.

Future plans

On the international supply side, new Give2Asia clients include two high-tech companies: Synopsis and Target. The former wants to support science education while the latter wants to develop early childhood education for children of migrant workers in Guangdong Province.

Give2Asia is meanwhile scouting for new partners on the demand side. One new partner is the Development Research Foundation, which is affiliated to the central government’s Development Research Centre think-tank and which sees donations from international companies as a potential source of funds for policy research and experimentation in areas such as the provision of free school lunches.

This steady growth of partners on both sides of the Pacific increases Give2Asia’s workload and the organisation is now hiring more staff to manage the growing project portfolio.

At the same time, Xiao Rong cautions that some of the less experienced grant recipients need capacity building support to enable them to make the best use of funds. There is no shortage of good ideas and good will, she says, but in some cases “implementation quality needs to be improved, as there are still limitations in their capacity and their idea of management.”

Report by Nick Young May 11, 2007