Professor Wang Ming, director of Tsinghua University’s NGO Research Center and a member of the national Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference made a proposal to carry out more favorable tax policies for non-public fundraising foundations and social organizations, and to promote more government contracting to grassroots social organizations.
He mentions that the Beijing government had allocated 100 million yuan to purchase services from social organizations for 2010, but because many grassroots organizations did not meet the qualifications for contracting, only about 50 million was disbursed. The article also mentions a related story in the news recently: the continued difficulties that Beijing Huiling, a long-standing grassroots organization serving youth with disabilities, is having getting registered as a social organization in Beijing. The upshot of this article is even as resources for public interest groups become more plentiful, they often do not get to the groups that need the resources because of the regulatory environment. It also reminds us that all the good news about reforms in this sector go for naught if they are actually implemented and enforced in ways that benefit grassroots organizations.
