- posted by Dien S Yuen
This morning, I had the opportunity to join a group of non-profits working in the environmental field in China. These groups are battling pollution, waste, river clean-up, saving snow leopards and many other issues. What is amazing is that these groups are lead by young leaders, many under the age of 40.
I learned that there are international NGOs working in this area or funding grassroots groups such as the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and several others. But there are only a very small handful of large individual donors funding this work. Many of the donors are corporations and the fund or volunteer efforts are under their CSR (corporate social responsibility) programs.
A local leader told me that these environmental groups usually have no problems finding in-kind donations and can mobilize volunteers easily. They usually need small grants, from $200 to $15,000 to do their work. Below are some tweets I had sent out. If you are interested, please follow me on http://twitter.com/asiangiving.
In Beijing, listening to a group of NGOs working on environmental issues talking about issues they are facing.
It is difficult for local grassroots organizations to work with funders that require specific reports because of limited staff.
Donor: I want to fund projects but I don't see impressive or innovative projects appealing to me on websites; where do I get more info?
NGO: we need funds for program development; capacity building; as a manager, we train and staff leave. No consistency. Bad for small groups.
Donor: we fund many groups but orgs are working in silos; want to see more partnerships; to see a whole system approach. How to help you?
Donor: I am only one; we need more donors to come together too. Invest together. There are no donor networks in China.
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