The fundraising models of NPOs and Foundations in Taiwan.

1 Abstract

In 2006, Taiwan government released the "Charity Donations Destined For Social Welfare Funds Implementation Regulations" for the following main purposes, effective control of Charity Donations, to use societal resources in appropriate manners, to promote social welfare & to protect the rights of donors.

However, due to the flaws and incompleteness of the regulation for a long time, in 2005, some NPOs advocated to establish the Taiwan NPO Self-Regulation Alliance to enhance the NPO accountability and transparency for the public.

According to the thesis of 歐烱杕, it shows that most Taiwan NPOs funding are form donation and government grants, and most NPOs lack confidence to ask enterprises to give. To make people abroad know about Taiwan NPOs found raising models, of which I will make analysis report on three NPOs with different know-hows. "Genesis Social Welfare Foundation" is good at Government Uniform Invoice (GUI) fundraising from the public, "Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation" which demonstrates how NPO could cooperate with small and medium-sized enterprises in Taiwan and "United Way of Taiwan" which adopts Liverpool Charity and Voluntary Services and acts as the mediation to raise, distribute and monitor fund for NPOs and as the platform to meet the needs and interest of minority people, NPOs and enterprises in Taiwan.

According to my literature review to their websites, the way for the public to give and the NPOs to raise fund in Taiwan are very creative and convenient now. People now would like to give by credit card more than before. In chain stores, you could easily print out the donation voucher from multimedia kiosk or just give changes or invoices for donation. To dial up a quick call with your cellphone is accessible to everyone who wants to give.

The E-funding system is easy to access on NPO's websites. Retrieved from The SSWF website.

Follow steps on ibon at 7-11 to print out the donation voucher. Retrived from: http://www.tfrd.org.tw/help/index.php?kind_id=1&sid=37

It is also important to have fans and supporters in virtual reality for NPOs. It is a shame not to use the web 2.0 applications like Facebook, Plurk and Blogger to promote the campaigns and organize fans for bigger social effects. Some fancy ways to raise funds, such as to fulfil friends' birthday charity wishes by donation or just married couples to buy charity thank card for friends, are integrated with the web 2.0 platform to engage young generations as well.

The Birthday Donation on the United Way of Taiwan Website and from which you could see how many friends support your birthday charity wishes and how much they have donated for you. Retrieved from The United Way of Taiwan.

There are some famous commercial portal sites like "Yahoo Charity" which functions like "Virgin Money Giving" in UK and the Apple Daily Charitable foundation, endowed from a famous gossip media cooperate, engage their numerous audience and readers to participate in donation and caring for the charity events.

This is one of the Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation's charity program on Yahoo Charity. You could see who are the donors to this program and how much money the foundation have raised. Retrieved from The Yahoo Charity website.

You could be a donor on Yahoo Charity. The page shows that this donor who has donated a lot of charity programs listed below. Retrieved from The Yahoo Charity website.

According to many studies, exposures to individual fundraising case are very effective for raising people's attention and sympathy in Taiwan, however people also criticises that the media power will mislead the public and result in unfairness of benefit distribution to the general cases. The NPOs and the endowment cooperation which care for the disabled people have very successful fundraising performance in Taiwan. It shows us that people prefers to give emergency donation or give money with soon and visable outcome.

According to Taiwanese' cognition, that we want to promote the orangutan conservation and rainforest their home is kind of like "a long-term overseas relief-aid case". We could hold fundraising activities which are legal in law and regulations but probably challenging for people's awareness. I suggest that the most important thing is to raise people's awareness to the world diversity and global warming change with linkage to the cause of orangutan extinction and their home rainforest devastation. Still, some cooperation could be made among the conservation and environmental protection NPOs, linked with zoos which keep endangered spices and implementing the platform of communities universities in Taiwan which are regarded the most successful social civilization movement in the last decade.

I must say that it is a unusual case for Taiwanese to donate money to aid overseas conservation work for a long time compared with the relief cases such as Tsunami 2004, Sichuan earthquake 2008 and Haiti earthquake 2010, however if we could successfully raise Taiwanese' awareness and contribute global obligation, this could be the initiative action for Taiwanese to aid the conservation work overseas.

2 Case studies to the fundraising models of NPOs in Taiwan

2.1 Taiwan NPO Self-Regulation Alliance

2.1.1 Website portal

1. Taiwan NPO Self-Regulation Alliance (English)
2. 台灣公益團體自律聯盟 (Mandarin

2.1.2 Objectives

Established in 2005. Their main objectives are to establish a self-regulation mechanism to promote information disclosure by NPOs, strive for the protection of donor rights, promote a legal environment that will ensure the sound development of Taiwan's NPO sector, encourage exchange between NPOs and promote NPO-related research.

2.1.3 Accountability

It provides the website to regulate NPOs who sign the pledge to updates their financial reports annually.

2.2 United Way of Taiwan

2.2.1 Website portal

1. United Way of Taiwan(English)
2. 中華社會福利聯合勸募協會 (Mandarin)

2.2.2 Objectives

Established since 1992. The United Way adopts the model of the Liverpool Charity and Voluntary Services in UK and acts as the platform and mediation to raise, distribute and monitor the fund and resources for NPOs in Taiwan.

2.2.3 Fundraising

In 2009, the United Way raises around $14 million from the public. According to their regulation, 85% of the raising funds will be distributed reasonably to NPOs after cautious evaluation to their performance and accountability by the committee, 2% will be the saved as the emergency relief fund, and 13% will support the administration of the United Way.

2.2.4 E-Funding system

People could transfer money through credit card, post office, banks and by check. People could also use the Multimedia Kiosk in chain stores, like the ibon of 7-11, Famiport of FamilyMart and LifeET of Hi-Life to print out the donation voucher and pay at the store counter. Also, the cellphone quick call is accessible to anyone who wants to give.

The United Way of Taiwan cooperates with patrons and celebrities to encourage young people to join the Birthday Donation and Wedding Donation activities which are integrated in web 2.0 application system.

The United Way of Taiwan has a portal site on Yahoo Charity and has a very good performance in fundraising for their programs.

2.2.5 CSR

The United Way of Taiwan has long term relationship with Citi Bank and has the permission from government to put donation boxes at the chain stores. Some enterprises also encourage their employees to donate one-day salary.

Many enterprises which want to contribute to the social welfare affairs but has no specific target will choose to donate to the United Way of Taiwan and trust their management of donation.

2.3 Genesis Social Welfare Foundation

2.3.1 Website portal

1. Genesis Social Welfare Foundation(English)
2. 財團法人創世福利基金會(Mandarin)

2.3.2 Objectives

Established in 1987. Their main objectives are to care for patients of persistent vegetative state (PVS), the elder and the homeless.

2.3.3 Fundraising

GSWF has the authority form government to put GUI donation boxes in schools, supermarkets (Carrefour) and chain stores (7-11, FamilyMart, HiLife) and will collect GUI boxes to check reward regularly.

According to the website, JSWF collected almost 100 million of GUI throughout Taiwan in 2009 and after checked by volunteers and staffs, they got the reward prize of around $3 million.

2.3.4 E-Funding system

People could transfer money through credit card, post office, banks and by check. People could also use the Multimedia Kiosk in chain stores, like the ibon of 7-11 or Famiport of FamilyMart to print out the donation voucher and pay at the store counter.

It provides sticker code for blog writer to post campaign news, organizes Facebook, Twitter and Plurk fans and produces animations and videos which are cooperated with celebrities and politicians to encourage GUI donate.

JSWF has no portal site on Yahoo Charity.

2.3.5 Accountability

Every 2 months, JSWF publishes the newsletter to their members and update on the website about their income, expense, donors' information and also reward price of GUI, however people can not find their annual financial reports like "Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation" online or on NPO Self-Regulation Alliance's website.

JSWF has the online search engine for donors to keyin their names to know if JSWF updated the donation or not.

2.3.6 CSR

JSWF which is famous and large foundation in Taiwan has very good relationship with small and medium-sized enterprises which will search for cooperation with them directly.

2.4 Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation

2.4.1 Website portal

1. Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation(English)
2. 陽光社會福利基金會(Mandarin)

2.4.2 Objectives

Established in 1989. Their main objectives are to provide an extensive range of services for burn survivors and people with facial disfigurement, to assist them in their physical, psychological and social rehabilitation and to uphold their human rights and dignity.

2.4.3 Fundraising

Except the GUI donation, the SSWF cooperates with many small and medium-sized enterprises to promote their campaigns and donation activities like "One NTD one person", selling the charity products and so on.

From the donation list on the website, you can see many donors are small and medium-sized enterprises and 23 enterprises of them provide job opportunities for burn survivors.

2.4.4 E-Funding system

People could transfer money through credit card, post office, banks and by check. People could also use the Multimedia Kiosk in chain stores, like the ibon of 7-11 or Famiport of FamilyMart to print out the donation voucher and pay at the store counter.

It provides sticker code for blog writer to post campaign news and organizes Facebook, Twitter and Plurk fans.

The SSWF has a portal site on Yahoo Charity and has a very good performance in fundraising for their programs.

2.4.5 Accountability

The SSWF updates their annual financial report in details and donors' information on website.

2.4.6 CSR

The SSWF cooperates with small-medium sized enterprises to provide job opportunities and scholarship for burn survivors and encourages enterprises to buy their merchandise, to donate GUI and to promote campaigns together.

3 References

1. Regulations
   1. Charity Donations Destined For Social Welfare Funds Implementation Regulations(English)、公益勸募條例(Mandarin)
   2. Charity Donations Act - Implementation Regulations(English)、公益勸募條例施行細則(Mandarin)
   3. Charity Donations Destined For Social Welfare Funds Implementation Regulations - Permission Regulations(English)、公益勸募許可辦法(Mandarin)
2. Thesis
   1. 歐烱杕(民97)。錢從哪裡來：台灣非營利組織之社會資本研究 (碩士論文)。 取自http://etd.library.scu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search-c/view_etd?URN=etd-0905109-104633
3. NPOs transparency and accountability advocacy associations
   1. Taiwan NPO Self-Regulation Alliance (English)、台灣公益團體自律聯盟 (Mandarin)
4. Case studies to NPOs fundraising models
   1. UnitedWay of Taiwan(English)、中華社會福利聯合勸募協會 (Mandarin)
   2. Genesis Social Welfare Foundation(English)、財團法人創世福利基金會(Mandarin)
   3. Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation(English)、陽光社會福利基金會(Mandarin)