Checking up on charity

Checking up on charity

• Source: Global Times
• [08:54 March 21 2011]
• Comments

Jackie Chan talks to children at the one year anniversary of the Haicang Charity Foundation on December 28, 2009. Photo: CFP

By Fang Yunyu

In a bid to combat fraud, China's charity reporting office, run by the China Association of Social Workers, is conducting a massive investigation of 43 companies and individuals who announced to the public last year that they donated at least 100 million yuan ($15.22 million) to charity in 2010.

The office revealed that they have found problems with four out of the 11 claimed donations checked so far; some donors could not provide evidence of their charity, and some alleged recipients claimed to be unaware of the promised donations.

"Since there's no law on this matter, donors can not pay or pay less than they promised and have nothing to lose in making such claims," Zhao Guanjun, the director of the office, told the Global Times Sunday. He added that some charity organizations told the office that they felt embarrassed to ask donors to wire more money to honor their pledges.

Zhao's team contacted the institutions that alleged donors claimed were the recipients of their charity to ask whether they had received the money, and requested the donors to provide a receipt for their donations.

Some donors told the office when questioned that they will wire the money that they promised in installments, according to Zhao.

"The money did not arrive in time anyway," he said. "Some entrepreneurs and companies are not really doing the charity work that they told the public they were doing."

In one high-profile case in 2009, famed writer Yu Qiuyu was found to have never made good on his promise to donate 200,000 yuan to relief charities for the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

After a news report on his lapse, Yu admitted that he had not paid as promised and said that instead he would donate books worth 200,000 yuan to support three "Qiuyu libraries" in three schools in Dujiangyan, a Sichuan city that suffered damage in the earthquake.

The donation office will release a full report of 2010's China charity donations on April 26, to honor donors and to expose fake donations.

"We urgently need laws to regulate the area of charity," Zhao said. "People can't just say they are going to donate to charity, receive the public's praise and do nothing afterwards."

Zhou Xiaozheng, a professor of sociology at Renmin University, pointed out that promised charity recipients actually have the right to sue donors for fraud if they do not carry through on their promises.

"Next time, if someone says they'll give a donation, say: show us the receipt! People can't build your great image out of nothing," Zhou said.