In his 2003 paper "Global Civil Society," Professor Lester M. Salamon of Johns Hopkins University in the US evaluated the economic situation of NPOs as though the global NPO community were a country, and found that NPOs as a whole represent the world's seventh largest economy, behind America, Japan, China, Germany, the UK, and France.

In an international survey, which included 35 countries from Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Europe, and Central and South America, it was found that between 1995 and 1998, NPOs created total assets of over US$1.3 trillion and mobilized manpower reserves of 39.5 million people-22.7 million staff and 16.8 million volunteers. These figures clearly show that, with the support of these tens of millions of people, the "global civil society" has already taken shape, and that NPOs are a force that cannot be ignored.

August of this year: The first group of adopted children of Dutch parents returned to Taiwan at the invitation of the Child Welfare League Foundation as ambassadors of love. They came here to encourage abandoned kids that are still waiting to be adopted. The Dutch father in the picture joyfully receives a show of affection from his children.

A foundation of humanity

What is an "NPO"?

NPOs are also known as NGOs, non-governmental organizations. The term NGO emphasizes organizations' roles as public organizations not affiliated with the government, while NPO emphasizes the fact that they are not motivated by profit, differentiating them from businesses. Simply put, they are the "third sector," after the public and private sectors.

Ku Chung-hwa, professor of sociology at National Chengchi University, explains that the biggest difference between NPOs and POs (profit organizations) is that in their mission to charitably serve the public, NPOs rely on resources collected from the community. The greatest difference between NGOs and GOs (governmental organizations) is that NGOs don't have the authority of the state behind them.

The United States is home to about 1.2 million NPOs, and in the 15 short years since communism's fall, Eastern Europe has given birth to 1 million NPOs. According to data collected by the Himalaya Foundation in 2002, on paper Taiwan has over 3000 NPOs, but of those, only 10% run continuing operations of any scale. Compared with NPO numbers abroad, it would appear people power in Taiwan still has a way to go before it's at full force.

The rise of NGOs in Taiwan started after the lifting of martial law in 1987. Before that time, says Ku, the government placed many restrictions on activity and gathering of groups, not only restricting membership numbers and funding, but also restricting the number of NGOs of any one kind.

After the restrictions were relaxed, all kinds of NPOs sprang up. According to statistics, educational organizations registered with the Ministry of Education make up the largest percentage of Taiwan's NPOs at 23.3%, with art and culture organizations second at 12.8%, and the smallest percentage being international aid groups, making up only 0.4% of the total.

The importance of NPOs can't be overstated. Chi Hui-jung, CEO of the Garden of Hope Foundation, says, "NPOs are not only one of the four major forces in Taiwan [the other three being government, enterprise, and the media], they are in fact the most important one, as well as the most idealistic." She notes that examples of the work of NPOs changing society's values and attitudes are too numerous to recount.

One such example is the movement against second-hand smoking spearheaded by the John Tung Foundation. After a decade of advocating this position, they have earned the support of society and won the passing of the Tobacco Hazards Prevention and Control Act. The Garden of Hope Foundation's campaign against child prostitution is another, having successfully changed society's belief that there was nothing wrong with child prostitution. Thanks to many years of effort by the Consumers' Foundation, consumer awareness in Taiwan has gradually grown, meaning that consumers are no longer lambs being led to the slaughter by unscrupulous businessmen.

World Vision Taiwan director Hank Du came to a career in NPOs from the private sector, bringing new concepts to World Vision Taiwan.

Giving and receiving

Last year, at the inaugural Asia-Pacific NPO Awards, Taiwan's Garden of Hope Foundation, which works to protect children and help abused women, unexpectedly beat more than 70 other nominees to take the top award. This served as a wake-up call to Taiwan's NPOs-it made them realize that they were world class.

Andy Kao, assistant executive director of the Himalaya Foundation, notes that in the past, Taiwan's NPOs rarely had any lines of interchange with international organizations, and as a result they didn't really have a full picture of their own special character. Compared to those in other countries in Southeast Asia, says Kao, Taiwan's NPOs are stronger operationally; not only do they not need any help from outside, they also have the mobility and motivation to actively help other countries.

"The people of Taiwan need their horizons broadened, to understand the needs of the larger world," says the president of World Vision Taiwan, Hank Du. In the past, Taiwan showed no interest in the problems of the world, but after the September 21, 1999 earthquake struck the island, Taiwan saw the scale and capability of international organizations, and in the years since then a change has started to take place. World Vision Taiwan holds an annual "30-Hour Famine," calling on everyone around Taiwan to show their concern for the needs of those around the world. This has been going for 16 years now.

Outsiders expressed concerns that the opening of Creation Social Welfare Foundation's patient rooms would infringe on the patients' privacy rights. The CSWF, however, felt that opening up the patient rooms could increase interaction between patients in a vegetative state and people. Furthermore, it also serves cautionary educational purposes which would reduce tragedies from occurring.

Family matters

Because of Taiwan's unique cultural and national ideologies, Taiwan's NPOs have several things that make them stand out from their cousins abroad.

After the lifting of martial law, says Ku Chung-hwa, Taiwan was caught up in a kind of "organizational revolution," but as was the case with small and medium enterprises in the country, the "family-like" nature of them was still far too strong.

Many NPOs had a strongly personal style of operations, being led by a fatherlike figure upon whom they'd rely to solve all the problems. There would be no organizational system to speak of, nor any performance reviews, and many NPOs faced the threat of having no "heir to the throne."

This was particularly true of the many major religious NPOs in Taiwan, for whom their organizational leader was also their spiritual leader. But most of these organizations were more oriented toward their religion than their society, and did their own thing behind closed doors, having little to do with other organizations.

There are some NPOs in Taiwan that are of an entirely different nature, says Professor Lin Wan-i of National Taiwan Univer-sity's Department of Social Work. In order to meet their financial management goals or get some tax relief, many significant people in Taiwan have set up their own NPOs, from legislators to local councilors. Several people have in their control a number of NPOs, so that they can easily get assistance, including financial assistance, from the government. This kind of personalized "VIP" NPO is something rarely found in Western nations.

The Taiwan Environmental Information Association and Bayer Taiwan jointly held the "2005 Eco-Working Holiday" event at the Yonglai Abandoned Mine on Yangmingshan, where wetlands restoration work and the planting of water and land-based plants took place. This is an example of cooperation between an NPO and a PO.

Buddying up

After an NPO is established, whether or not it can successfully achieve its goals in the community is dependent on the complicated relationship between economic and governmental setup, rules and regulations, competitive pressures, fundraising methods, and the amount of trust the community has in them. Recent years have seen a huge upheaval in Taiwan's situation, and this has forced NPOs to evolve.

When the Democratic Progressive Party rose to power in 2000 after years in opposition, they emphasized a philosophy that when it comes to government, "small is beautiful," and that they wanted to work as a partner with NPOs. This gave the NPOs, which had in the past been fiercely critical of the state of the nation, the chance to finally put their plans into action and even get brought into the governmental fold as official workgroups.

Take for example the women's movement. They had gone through a period of protesting in the streets, eventually succeeding in getting the government to act, including revising the family law section of the Civil Code, and passing the Gender Equality in Employment Law and Domestic Violence Prevention Act. After this success, it seemed that that particular mission was accomplished, so many members moved into positions working directly for the government, making the shift from critics and watchers to implementers.

Some of the social welfare organizations, working to find job opportunities for the physically and intellectually disabled, forwent the usual governmental and commercial paths and began operating their own "community enterprises." Despite the promulgation of the Physically and Mentally Disabled Citizens Protection Act in 1990 and regulations establishing a minimum number of disabled people that companies must employ, many companies still breach the law and get fined, gathering over NT$10 billion for the Job Placement Fund for the Physically and Mentally Handicapped.

The Council of Labor Affairs operates this fund to help social welfare organizations provide vocational training, support, and sheltered employment to the physically and mentally disabled, as well as helping them find jobs. Amongst these are the Eden Foundation created by author Hsing Lin-tsi (aka Liu Hsia), Taiwan's largest social welfare organization. Not only does the organization have centers in northern, southern, central, and eastern Taiwan where massages by vision-impaired masseurs are offered, it also has workplaces throughout the country where they can work, providing work and training for over 300 disabled people, nearly 25% of their total workforce.

Another such organization is the Syin-lu Welfare Foundation, which focuses its efforts on helping the mentally handicapped. They run a total of five laundromats, and last year they bought a gas station. Together these offer job opportunities to over 130 disabled people. Executive director Tsung Ching-i says that the goal of running these is not profit, but rather to help address the problems the disabled face in finding work. Sometimes their expenses actually exceed their revenue, and the foundation has to pay the balance out of its own pocket.

As the amount of governmental resources available has gradually shrunk in recent years, the number of NPOs has kept rising, and the NPO scene has become highly competitive. This was particularly so in the aftermath of the September 1999 quake, when resources were stretched to their limit. Many NPOs faced a dramatic reduction in fundraising ability, forcing them to change their approach. Organizations took on PR consultants, held events, and worked the media, using every method they could think of to raise funds. It was a tremendously hard time for them. Competition was so ferocious that even the well known and respected Consumers' Foundation almost had to shut up shop.

In the wake of the South Asian tsunami, students enthusiastically took part in the Eden Social Welfare Foundation's "Working Holiday" event. Paying their own way, they traveled to Thailand's Koh Lanta as volunteers to serve the local fishermen's children. (courtesy of the Eden Social Welfare Foundation)

NPO trusts

As the global NPO situation becomes more competitive, the bigger NPOs keep growing and pulling in more and more resources, while the smaller ones face the opposite, finding it ever harder to survive. This has resulted in a vicious circle and led to an obvious trend towards "trust formation" in Taiwan's oligopolistic NPO world.

"NPOs can also become bureaucracies," says Lin Wan-i. As the management part of an NPO grows larger and salaries increase, this not only leads to the threat of bureaucratization, but also can force organizations to compromise themselves due to being too top-heavy.

"When an organization gets big enough, drawbacks are inevitable," says Cao Ching, chairman of Creation Social Welfare Foundation, an organization that cares for the homeless, the elderly, and those in persistent vegetative states. CSWF has had its share of problems, with nurses cracking under the pressure, losing control and injuring PVS patients; staff stealing the till receipts that are one of the foundation's fundraising resources; and others taking postage. In order to nip these problems in the bud, and out of concerns that staffers focusing on one particular area might start feeling that they own it, CSWF established a roster system, with positions having a term of three years, and staffers only being able to hold any given position for three consecutive terms.

So as to avoid becoming monolithic monstrosities, Lin Wan-i says, Taiwan's NPOs should localize and decentralize, they don't need to simply focus on becoming "national." This is because once NPOs become ubiquitous, with branches everywhere, this will create a strain on resources, resulting in a few organizations monopolizing Taiwan's social services. All this will lead to NPOs losing their ability to encourage the public to participate and pull together to look after public affairs.

August 13-14: Thousands gathered on the soccer field of Chungshan University in Kaohsiung to participate in World Vision's 30 Hour Famine event. They were all willing to "pay money to go hungry" and briefly share the hardship of the very poor.

Hand-in-hand with government

With the greater environment so unfavorable and the government working on developing a "partnership" with the third sector through grants, trust schemes, and operation of public facilities, NGOs and GOs are gradually developing a more significant relationship. One example of this is the Garden of Hope Foundation, which last year faced expenses of NT$120 million, with over half of that coming from government assistance.

Andy Kao explains that Taiwan's NPOs have taken on a huge number of responsibilities, and many things that would normally be handled by the government have been handed over to them to take care of. For one, these organizations may not be competent enough to successfully handle them, and secondly, these extra burdens actually inflict greater losses on NPOs because the government will rarely pay the full cost of such activities.

"Government funding is hard to get, and it's a hassle going through the process," says Garden of Hope CEO Chi Hui-jung. If you want government funding to pay for something, first the organization has to pay for it itself and then apply to the government for reimbursement. At present, Garden of Hope has over NT$7 million in advance payments waiting to be handled by the government.

"Cancellation of the payment is the biggest concern," says Chi, "and every city and county has different requirements." Some won't pay personnel expenses, some will; some won't pay pension and health insurance levies, some will. With no standard things are extremely complicated, and NGOs are highly concerned by the current situation.

Chi explains that although the relationship between NGOs and the government is called a "partnership," it would be more accurate to call it an employer-employee relationship. "The government says it wants to help strengthen NPOs, but at the same time they make us waste our energy fighting through miles of red tape," says Chi. The government looks at this part of the cooperation as protecting the public purse against fraud, but unfortunately it ends up making the organizations waste their precious manpower battling their way through paperwork.

Policies change all the time, and this is the biggest problem facing the cooperation between NPOs and the government.

Chi notes that government policies come and go-something you have to do this year, you might not have to next year. Some NGOs, unwilling to sacrifice half their strength to taking care of this just tend to harden up and forge ahead alone.

For example, the "Independent Lifestyle Scheme," worked on by the Taipei City Government in cooperation with the Garden of Hope Foundation originally planned to help support over-18s who had completed the course with an NT$1000 monthly living allowance, but once funding was cut the foundation didn't want to abandon the kids, and just tightened its belt and continued funding them itself.

NGOs used to act as monitors of the government, but now they're being "supervised" by the government, a turn of events which has caused major problems. "Well, you can't very well bite the hand that feeds you," says Chi. Whether NPOs can protect the self-determination of the third sector in this kind of environment will be the true test of their strength.

With the onset of summer, children from remote areas were invited to experience city life in Taipei as part of the "Cathay Children's Growth Camp" jointly held by the Cathay Charity Foundation and World Vision Taiwan. The final activity took the kids to the Landis Taipei Hotel to enjoy a Western-style meal and also to learn table manners. From the diligent expressions on their faces, one can see that this meal was not very relaxing for them.(photo by Chuang Kung-ju)

Working with business

Patrons in the business community are also a source of funds for NPOs which is in transition, but it's still something most of Taiwan's businesses are unwilling to commit to.

Andy Kao points out that the ties between Taiwan's NPOs and the private sector are still relatively weak, and "domestic companies prefer to set up their own foundations and control them themselves. They're only really concerned with building a good corporate image, they're not that worried about the public good." For that reason, true business patrons in Taiwan are few and far between.

Some people call cooperation between NPOs and businesses a double-edged sword; it is important for NPOs not to lose their independent position while still trying to gain patronage.

"NPOs can't fight someone with one hand and with the other beg them for money," says Society of Wilderness secretary-general Chang Hung-lin. The SOW works with businesses on a case-by-case basis, and refuses to be bought or lose its self-determination.

One such cooperative venture, between the SOW and 7-Eleven, has been environmentally significant. Concerned that natural habitats would be destroyed, and planning to create a "wetland plant refuge," the SOW collects NT$1 million each year from 7-Eleven's Green Fund. Every dollar in this fund comes from the sales of plastic bags with purchases at 7-Eleven stores.

The Children Are Us Foundation's cooperation with Citibank could be considered the most successful example of an NPO working with a business.

Choosing a good name was the Children Are Us Foundation's first step down the path to successful marketing. As Tina Wu, the foundation's executive director, says, when a business chooses who to work with, they don't want to get attached to a name that sounds too severe. "Children Are Us," on the other hand, sounds friendly, and is in line with the family-friendly sort of image Citibank want to cultivate. This was the main reason Citibank chose to work with the foundation. With Citibank's help-including financial assistance, the issuance of affinity cards, and organizing PR and marketing-Children Are Us has grown into a major name in the past few years.

However, not every NPO is so lucky. The Syin-lu Welfare Foundation, established 18 years ago, for a long time barely had any chances to catch the attention of major corporations. In the past two years, the foundation has received annual grants of NT$1 million from cosmetics company Clarins, who have also set up collection boxes on each of their major counters. In one month, these boxes nearly collected a total of NT$1 million. The foundation's executive director Tsung Ching-i explains that this is enough to fund five mentally handicapped children's attendance at an early treatment center.

While government and enterprises do provide funding to NPOs, they can also be two of the biggest threats to their survival. Professor Lin Wan-i of NTU warns that society needs to be watchful to ensure that government and business don't start causing undue changes in NPOs, using money and power to send NPOs into spins. Additionally, some social work should be the responsibility of government and business, and NPOs should play a monitoring role, keeping an eye on things rather than stepping in themselves. Some such work that should be done by business or government includes giving job opportunities to the handicapped, setting up schools, and providing medical services.

When NPOs start getting involved in civil service work, it's easier for them to become institutionalized, and once that happens, their old role, overseeing the government, is lost, and their new role is confused. "The more they start working in place of the government, the less than can act as any sort of watchdog, and their duty as an NPO falls by the wayside."

As an example, Lin cites how the environmental and advocacy NPOs in America are losing momentum, while their comrades in Europe are going strong. The main reason: the American ones are taking on too much of the government's work.

Chi Hui-jung, executive director of the Garden of Hope Foundation, which this year was named one of the top ten children's advocacy groups in the world, successfully balances ideals against reality. She is one of the leading lights in Taiwan's NPO sector.

Inadequate transparency

Aside from the risk of losing sight of their true function, Taiwan's NPOs also currently lack transparency. External discipline of them lags behind, Ku Chung-hwa explains, and they lack self-discipline. The 1989 amendment to the Civil Association Act has begun to prove inadequate.

"A lack of transparency can be harmful to an NPO's long-term development prospects," says Andy Kao. If donors can't see whether an NPO is effective, they can't properly evaluate whether or not their resources are being used appropriately, and thus won't continue to support that NPO. With both good and bad apples in the barrel, at the least this will lead to a drop in willingness to donate in the public. In the worst-case scenario, this will lead to corruption in NPOs, and possibly even to a rush to the bottom of the barrel, harming the entire NPO sector.

Chiang Min-hsiu, director of the Center for the Third Sector at National Chengchi University, notes that NPOs in countries like the Philippines, Bangladesh, and India are largely funded by first-world donations, and so have developed full authentication systems and alliances. Taiwan's NPOs have a long way to go in this respect.

On the external discipline front, the National Youth Commission has produced the "Draft Plan for Non-Profit Organization Development," in an effort to nip potential problems in the bud. The draft has already been submitted to the legislature, which is considering its integration into the Civil Associations Act as an amendment. As well as abolishing the legal distinction between associations and foundations, and redefining the term NPO, the draft also seeks to lower the threshold for becoming an NPO, while also increasing the amount of regulation on NPOs by, for example, establishing an authorization mechanism and making NPO financial details available to the public.

Before the draft was published, there were already some voices starting to call for self-discipline within the NPO community. In late March, a group of 30-some NPOs formed the NPO Self-Discipline Alliance, and by the end of August over 80 organizations had signed on. Their future plans include setting up a website, where they will regularly publish the income and expenses of each NPO in an effort to build public trust in them.

Looking to the future, how can NPOs come together and make the best use of the available resources in such a competitive environment? This is something Taiwan's NPOs will have to work hard to address.

Chi Hui-jung believes that strategic alliances may be the answer. Chi, who also serves as president of the Taiwan Youth Rights and Welfare Alliance, says that aside from the good fortune they've earned for themselves, Garden of Hope also budgets 10% for supporting other NPOs, such as donating to the Taiwan AIDS Foundation, and supplying office space and assistance with personnel expenses to the TYRWA and Taiwan Sandplay Association, a psychiatric services orgranization.

In order to change the every-man-for-himself situation of Taiwan's NPOs, the National Youth Commission started work on developing an NPO league in 2001. This would provide a platform for cooperation between NPOs, as well as holding a series of conferences and establishing an NPO network. They have put forward a list of 132 items to deal with, leading the way in NPO collaboration.

Non-profit organizations in Taiwan are still growing and there are many problems to yet to be overcome, so they need the concern and investment of the people. After all, these organizations are the last bastions of society's conscience, and we must protect them. We cannot abandon them.