First, Customer Needs
As Chinese government strengthens and innovates in community governance, the State Council and the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee have issued a series of documents such as “Opinions on Reforming the Management System of Social Organizations and Promoting the Healthy and Orderly Development of Social Organizations,” “Work Plan on Further Promoting the Participation of Social Organizations in Social Governance “, which have provided new ideas and requirements for governments at all levels to further strengthen and innovate the community governance. The Pudong New District Civil Affairs Bureau takes the community foundation as key work to integrate community resources, activate the vitality of the community, serve the community livelihood, and promote the participation of multiple subjects of the community in the establishment of a safe community.
With a mission to promote the healthy development of nonprofit industries, NPO Development Center, Shanghai (hereinafter referred to as the “NDC”) focuses on capacity building and training of nonprofit organizations. Since 2008, NDC has actively promoted the development of community foundations in China in order to collect community resources to solve community issues. Based on its experience, NDC has formed three community foundation capacity building models –“Taoyuanju”, “Yangjing” and “Lujiazui”. Pudong New District Civil Affairs Bureau highly agreed with the concept of developing community foundations in a rational, professional and sustainable way. In August 2016, Pudong New District Civil Affairs Bureau commissioned NDC to provide capacity building services for 11 potential community foundations to promote the social governance and public welfare in Pudong New District.
Second, The Solution
Based on the status quo of each town in Pudong New District, NDC has provided customized service for 11 towns that are interested in setting up community foundations.
1, Promotion
Pudong Civil Affairs Bureau organized three community foundation promotion meetings, in which NDC has made keynote speeches, seminars and case sharing, so that the participating town officers and social organization service center staff have a preliminary understanding of the community foundation.
2, Individual Consultation
Through visiting 10 towns, NDC held face-to-face communication with heads of various towns and foundation preparation team members to understand the difficulties they encountered during the preparatory process, analyze the existing problems and made professional advice. The issues covered included the preparation of registration materials, the composition of the board of supervisors and the board of directors, the sources of founding funds and subsequent operational funds, the composition of the secretariat and so on.
3, Group Consultation
NDC also expanded new forms of consultation. It held 2 group consulting meetings to answer common problems faced by foundations such as “How to Hold a First Council Meeting”.
4, Visiting
In addition, NDC took 11 potential foundation teams to visit Yangjing Community Foundation also nurtured by NDC to learn its experience. At the same time, it invited the Secretary-General of Lujiazui Community Foundation to share his fund-raising and operational experience.
Third, Achievements
NDC plays the role of advocate, consultant, and facilitator in this project.
First of all, the awareness of the community foundation among town governments had been raised by the project. Through 3 keynote speeches, seminars and case sharing by NDC, town government officers raised awareness of the value, role and operation concept of the community foundation, which promoted the development of community foundations.
Second, the project clarified the founding process of community foundations. Through the research on community social organizations, NDC analyzed the problems existing in the preparatory phase of the community foundation and put forward constructive suggestions and ideas for the smooth establishment and future development of community foundations.
Third, the project promoted community foundation registration. Through field visits, trainings, individual and group consultation, NDC provided professional advice to 11 towns in the establishment of the council of community foundations, board meetings and registrations. 11 potential towns were identified and a set of tool kits (such as system templates, reference frames, flow charts and other materials) were developed for them and eight community foundations have been successfully registered.
Fourth, the project broadened the channels of professional involvement. Relying on the successful cases formed over the years and a wide range of industry resources, NDC has set up a platform for peer exchange for the newly established community foundations.
Fifth, the project keeps pace with the times and innovates the capacity building mode of the community foundation. NDC’s community foundation nurturing patterns in the past are usually focused on a single community foundation: Taoyuanju, Yangjing, Lujiazui and so on. But this time, it was different from usual. Due to the large number of community needs but the lack of specialized agencies，NDC actively explored a new model–group capacity building mode. It provided 11 community foundations in Pudong New District a one-stop group capacity building service project.
