Chen Guangbiao -China's Philanthropist Without a Cause

After reading my last blog on philanthropy in China, one of my Chinese friends urged me to examine the case of Chen Guangbiao—the self-proclaimed “China’s First Philanthropist”. In fact, she told me that she despised Chen who is obviously taking advantage of his charity work for self-promotion.  At first, I think it’s interesting how philanthropists are viewed in China and in the West.  High-profiled philanthropists are generally considered as inspiring in the West but sources of controversy in China.  Philanthropy is not new in China. But Chinese traditional idea promotes anonymity.  As one of the Confucius virtue goes: “we should not expect to be remembered when we give, but a gift is never forgotten when we receive” (施恩不念, 受恩不忘).  Even the Communism Regime promoted self-less act of kindness like my childhood hero the People’s Liberation Army soldier Lei Feng, who helped others anonymously.  

The 2008 Sichuan Earthquake has given rise to a new generation of Chinese philanthropists. According to the article Philanthropy the Chinese Way, “During the 2008 Sichuan earthquake for example, a large number of Taiwanese businesses donated huge sums of money but this was all done in a low-profile manner. Chinese enterprises meanwhile adopted a completely different approach.  Chinese beverage giant Wang Lao Ji in Guangdong donated 100 million yuan (US$15.2m) but also generated quite a lot of publicity in doing so. Some local media reports even described the massive donation as a good piece of business. By contrast, similar amounts were donated by certain Taiwanese enterprises, though they did it quietly” (2011, wantchinatime.com).   

Chen Guangbiao has been the representative of the Chinese high-profiled philanthropists from the beginning. Let’s look at a chronology of Chen’s good deeds:

• 2008 Sichuan Earthquake: Chen donated 181 million Yuan (about CAD$30 million)
• 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake: Chen organized a private rescue team including himself and rescued 11 survivors.  However, he made earthquake survivors took a photo with him holding up 200 yuan bills in their hands.  Some in the press accused Chen of conducting “violent philanthropy” by taking advantage of a tragic situation for shameless self-promotion.
• 2009 Chen hosted a banquet with Bill Gates and Warren Buffet promoting philanthropy. He pledged all his wealth to charity after he dies.
• 2011 Chen built a “money wall” with his donation of 15 million yuan (CAD$2.5 million) at an event in Nanjing where a huge pile of hundred yuan notes was stacked up behind him, providing the media with a good photo opportunity. Similar photo ops were also held in other parts of China.
• 2011 Chen went to Taiwan with a delegate of Chinese entrepreneurs and distributed cash on the street to low income families.  A staged event to distribute cash to representatives of low income families had ended chaotically with large amount of people grabbing and shoving. The incident generated unfavorable press in Taiwan mainly accusing Chen of not being considerate of the dignity of people he wanted to help and to create high profile promotional opportunity for himself. 

So where did this new Chinese way of philanthropy come from?  What’s wrong with the picture of the Chinese philanthropist grinning in front of a money wall?

Despite of China’s enormous economic success, Chinese society is not “business as usual” as most people in the West would assume.  Looking closely, anything to do with ideology including arts, culture, and religion do not enjoy as much freedom as the business community.  The art world in China, for example, either exudes inexplicable surrealism or extreme commercialism.  Artistic, cultural, and religious communities are carving their ways around the Party lines to seek alternative voices to compensate for the lack of freedom of expression especially after the Tian’anmen crack-down in 1989.  Philanthropy, especially the concept of a cause, has numerous ideological undertones that the Chinese government doesn’t like or even is afraid of.  A cause is essentially an idea often related to social reform and social change.  It often involves mobilizing the masses. Although everyone is advocating for less government involvement in the Chinese NGOs, I don’t’ see government giving free reign on the subject of “causes” any time soon just because the ideological implications.  On the other hand, random act of kindness without specific purposes are greatly encouraged.  Chinese government perhaps would have more problems with a philanthropist advocating a cause than someone like Chen Guangbiao’s outrageous display and self promotion.  In a way, like the art community, a commercial twist might be the way to negotiate the growth for philanthropy in China. 

A sharp contrast is the reaction of Taiwan to Chen’s money-throwing tour.  Taiwan media and Taiwan authorities expressed overwhelming disapprovals.  According to one report, Chen’s refusal to give through charity organizations and to directly distribute cash to the hands of the needy showed that he is mal-informed of the Taiwanese civil society.  Unlike mainland China, Taiwanese charity organizations are regulated and accountable for donations.   By disregarding this “cultural” difference, Chen caused the commotion that had hurt the dignity of those who were supposed to benefit. This incident further shows the lack of understanding of how philanthropy works in a democratic society by the newly riches of China.

In conclusion, ideological suppression paired with the lack of sophistication of China’s Nouveau Riche had given birth to this Philanthropy the Chinese Way and its philanthropists without a cause. 

References

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20110126000138&cid=1603

http://www.knowledgeatwharton.com.cn/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&articleID=2337&languageid=1

Philanthropy in China

I had attended a very interesting webinar yesterday hosted by Foundation Search and Metasoft Systems on Philanthropy in China.  I had long been questioning the overwhelming response in the North American fundraisers on a so-called “emerging civil sector” in China.  As someone who is born and raised in China, I don’t see a true civil society and a voluntary sector in China unless drastic changes are made in the social and political landscape first.  I am very glad that the webinar had included a presenter like Blake Bromley who had a way deeper understanding of the problems China’s facing as well as seeing through the façade of “Chinese philanthropy” that North American fundraisers are naively embracing.  

Here is a summary of what I had experienced and also learned about philanthropy and the civil sector in China:

Government Controlled Causes
There are no truly independent NGOs in China.  Every charity organization had to be approved by the government.  The causes these NGO supports therefore have to be in line with the state or party principles.  This means that government effectively controls what causes can be supported in China.  

Reading Between the Lines
What got most North American fundraiser excited is the published numbers of donations by China Daily.  China Daily is a 100% government controlled media.  Chinese and expatriates in China had long learned the art of “reading between the lines” as government controlled media, as Blake Bromley had pointed out in the webinar, only publishes what they want you to hear.  When I see such number published, instead of rejoicing for an “emerging civil society” in China, I would question the motive and strategy of the government for placing a piece like that in the media.  

Lack of Transparency
There is still a tremendous lack of transparency in China on how the relieve fund were used.  The authority of using the fund usually lies in local governments (dictated by Central government).  There is a huge gap among local governments in China and between central and local governments in terms of government transparency and sophistication.  Deals are happening under the table and the so called donor reports and donor stewardship could be manufactured to be “what they want you to hear or what you like to hear”.  Even when Vivan Smith mentioned an organization that’s consists of 100% volunteers.  A Chinese person would immediately question: Are people volunteered or voluntold?  Nothing can be taken at face-value due to the complexity of Chinese society.

The Power of the Business Community
I have argued in my Master thesis on Cultural and Ideological influence of Chinese Advertising (Song 2000), that the emerging Chinese business community is the only voice that could potentially challenge the government authority and government endorsed values (especially the re-engineering of the revitalization of the Confucius values) .  Being away from China for more than 15 years, I am glad to hear from Blake Bromley yesterday that this is still the case that the most innovative ideas that came from China are from the private sector where businesses are granted relatively more freedom due to their contribution to the economy than NGOs in the civil sector.  I believe the elite class in China will continue to find ways to get their voices heard through the private sector instead of the “civil sector”.

Is there philanthropy in China?
It doesn’t mean that there is no philanthropy in China.  Government controlled NGOs are doing some work.  Control causes are better than no cause especially when it comes to disaster relieves.  Chinese people might prefer to give clothing, books or durable household items instead of money to make sure that people in distress are being helped.  The deep rooting family value in the Chinese culture will still manifest its influence so that supports and wealth can be shared amongst family members often stretched geographically due to the rural to urban migration movement.  I would be more worried about the Chinese Youth (to Blake’s point of the “disappearing family” in China) than rejoicing to the “Strong Youth in China” (which is one of the things they want the AFP delegates to hear).  What does the “disappearing family” mean to the value of people helping each other in a clan or a family network?  That would truly be an interesting phenomenon to see as the new generation in China takes reigns in a decade.   It’s true that there are wealthy people in China. But it does not mean that China is on the same level ground as those of us in North America when it comes to civil sector and philanthropy.  Is the Chinese society ready for a true civil sector where true philanthropy can thrive?  I don’t think so.  The huge economic disparity in urban and rural China, the government transparency issue, currency control, and the control of ideology are all but just a few of the social economical barriers for a true civil society.  

Asian Philanthropy: What is the opportunity?
So what is the true opportunity here as asked by the title of this webinar? I don’t see Chinese wealth flows out of Mainland China into North America at all with the government control of foreign reserve and the lack of motivation perhaps for Chinese to help causes in North America (why? Isn’t there enough problems in China left to be fixed first?).  We also had to make a big distinction between Hong Kong and Mainland China.   The wealthy people in Hong Kong are educated in the West, globe trotting cosmopolitans who have liquidity (often means wealth in Western banks instead of Chinese banks) to donate to the west as well as the affinity to mainstream values in the West.   There are certainly opportunities there.  However, I think fundraisers in North America should put in the same amount of enthusiasm and dedication into understanding the Chinese ethic group who live in North America.  Especially in Canada where ethnic population will increase exponentially and we are left facing a different demographic landscape.  The true opportunity of Asian philanthropy lies at home after all.

Reference
Song, Qian (Melody) 2000.  Rethinking Cannes: a study of the debate on the cultural and ideological aspects of commercial advertising in China.

Relationship Mapping for a Constituency with NodeXL

I have talked about the importance of individual relationship mapping in my previous blog but what I found most interesting with this whole data visualization business is when I link all the individual maps together into a relationship database.  For those of you who are lucky enough to have a good fundraising database, you could perhaps export data from your existing constituency as well.  

In this constituency mapping, individuals do not only have first degree connections, but second or third degree connections.  The visualization tool I’m using is NodeXL, a free Excel plugin.  It works as an excel spreadsheet for the most part but generate a template that visualize the data for you.  NodeXL enables users to extract “Sub-graphs” for individuals at different degrees level.  See examples below: Figure 1-4 demonstrate prospect’s connections when degree of connection was selected from 1^st to 4^th degree from a constituency map:

 

 

The sub-graph with the desired degree of connections can then be exported to a new NodeXL workbook for further analysis as follows:

Figure 5

We can then see that our prospect has a path to one of our volunteer (labeled in blue) which we won’t be able to find by just doing individual relationship maps.    With this visualization tool, the process of mapping a path and generating a relationship map for a complete new prospect (who already exists in the relationship database) can be done within minutes.  You can also start with a volunteer and generate a list of individuals that has some degree of connections to him/her and hence provide a list of prospects for that volunteer to review.  Suddenly, our confidence in that list of prospects we provide to our volunteer just increased exponentially since we know how the connections could exist.   Using sub-graph function is already helping us in planning solicitation strategies as well as qualifying prospects.  

For Major Gift purpose, the ability to extract sub-graphs for any individual or organization (or what we call Node or Vertex in data visualization lingo) is for me the most valuable function.  

Another interesting function offered by NodeXL is the ability to score each vertex (in our case, our individual or organizational prospect) with metrix that measures their importance in a social network.  To understand how this works requires a little background on Social Network Analysis.  One great way to illustrate is the Kite graph:

Figure 6

Source: http://www.leader-values.com/Content/detail.asp?ContentDetailID=912

What the Kite Graph tells us is the Degree Centrality, Betweeness Centrality and Closeness Centrality of individual nodes.  Here, Diane has high Degree Centrality because she has the most direct connections within her own network.  Heather, on the other hand, has fewer direct connections but she is connecting two important constituencies and is the gatekeeper of information flow between Diane’s network and Ike and Jane.  Therefore Heather has a high Betweeness Centrality.  Fernando and Garth has fewer connections than Diane.  However, they have the shortest route to everyone in this network hence grant them higher Closeness Centralities. 

In the fundraising world, someone like Diane who has high Degree Centrality could be an industry influencer; someone like Heather could be a connector between industries.   NodeXL calculates these metrix for you automatically as added columns in the “Vertex” tab of the Excel workbook as illustrated below:

Vertex	Degree	Betweeness Centrality	Closeness Centrality	PageRank
Dennis	22	62657.347	0.000	7.343
Diana	7	19574.289	0.000	2.429
Gordon	8	31976.101	0.000	2.547

Note that it can’t calculate “Closeness Centrality” for some reason.  Also aside from Centrality calculation, it also calculates PageRank.  “PageRank is a link analysis algorithm, named after Larry Page and used by the Google Internet search engine, that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of "measuring" its relative importance within the set. Here it calculates the relative importance of an individual or organization within the network” (source: wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank).

When we are assembling campaign cabinet for a major campaign or looking for board members, we could use this tool to evaluate potential volunteers and their role in various funding priorities. 

In the next blog, I'm going to summarize a few problems and considerations I encountered when dealing with relationship mapping as well as reviews of a few commercial relationship mapping sites.