THINKING STRATEGICALLY ABOUT CIVIL SOCIETY ASSISTANCE IN CHINA Just like as every person has the rights and responsibilities of a citizen, a corporation also needs to take over social responsibility Duan Tao, Sino-Ocean Charity Foundation, Secretary General This interview was conducted by Dr Andreas Fulda as part of a research project commissioned by Geneva Global. It is published by China Development Brief and Geneva Global. Geneva Global is an innovative social enterprise that works with clients to maximize the performance of their global philanthropic and social impact initiatives. The interview reflects the independent opinion of the interviewee and does not represent the views of the publishers. Dr Andreas Fulda is an academic practitioner with an interest in social change, organisational development and documentary filmmaking. During the past ten years Dr Fulda has helped design and implement three major capacity building initiatives for Chinese CSOs: the Participatory Urban Governance Programme for Migrant Integration (2006-07), the Social Policy Advocacy Coalition for Healthy and Sustainable Communities (2009-11) and the EU-China Civil Society Dialogue Programme on Participatory Public Policy (2011-14). Dr Fulda is also the editor of the book Civil Society Contributions to Policy Innovation in the PR China (Palgrave Macmillan, April 2015). Contact: [email protected] uk.linkedin.com/in/andreasfulda/ Highlights from the interview On 12 May 2008 a big earthquake occurred in Wenchuan, Sichuan province. This earthquake prompted our company, Sino-Ocean Land, to donate more than five million Yuan. At that time our CEO Mr Li Ming considered that apart from donating money Sino-Ocean Land could play an active role in the process of disaster reconstruction. Sino-Ocean considers both education and environmental protection a source of motivation for the future which is directly linked with the issue of social development. We take societal needs as our starting point and pay attention to the fields of education, poverty alleviation and environmental protection. We had the choice to either establish a grant-making foundation or a self-operating foundation. The CEO of Sino-Ocean Land stated that the main intention was to educate its staff. The performance of the foundation would be measured against the number of employees and executives participating in this line of work. In order to meet this request, we became a self-operating and not a grant-making foundation. When we launch a project we do so as a self-operating foundation. But that does not mean that we do not collaborate with other cooperation partners. We would definitively realise them with the help of cooperation partners, such as government departments or even organisations such as NGOs, schools, including our own service organisations. We chose those work units, organisations or companies which have a good standing in society. We do not simply give money to an organisation. Instead we are in charge of overall planning and organisation and bringing all of the resources together. Sino-Ocean Land is willing to take over its corporate social responsibility, for which its philanthropic and charity arm is its most important platform. Of course Sino-Ocean Land is also making a small contribution to the sustainable development of society through this organisation and by communicating with all sorts of stakeholders and enabling more cooperation. So why would we do this? This is because we believe that, just like as every person has the rights and responsibilities of a citizen, a corporation is also a legal person. As a person, we also need to take over our social responsibility. This interview was conducted by Dr Andreas Fulda in Beijing, China on 22 July 2014. Translated by Sujing Xu and Andreas Fulda. Interview transcript | Duan Tao Andreas Fulda (AF): The Sino-Ocean Charity Foundation was established in 2008. What kind of societal problems did the founder intend to solve with its establishment? What was the motivation of the founder? Duan Tao (DT): On 12 May 2008 a big earthquake occurred in Wenchuan, Sichuan province. This earthquake prompted our company, Sino-Ocean Land, to donate more than five million Yuan. At that time our CEO Mr Li Ming considered that apart from Disaster donating money Sino-Ocean Land could play an active role in the process of disaster reconstruction reconstruction. From its initial establishment in 1993 and until 2008, Sino-Ocean Land has simultaneously developed its main business whilst taking on social responsibility for communities and the public. As a very important aspect of social responsibility it has undergone an extensive cycle of learning and understanding of charity and philanthropy. Sporadic donations, paying attention to key issues and a focus on environmental protection have all been part of this stage. Through the accumulation of experiences, regardless whether in the field of human resources or our implementing capability the company’s senior management eventually concluded that it already had a professional, specific and organized philanthropic and charitable arm of the company. Seen in this light the 12 May 2008 Wenchuan earthquake thus became a catalyst for the establishment of an independent Sino-Ocean Charity Foundation. Against the backdrop of these two factors, our boss and company’s senior management reached a mutual understanding to establish an organisation, an entity through which we could ensure the sustainable development of our philanthropy and charity. We thus established a foundation with the Department of Civil Affairs. When deciding on our philanthropic direction we not only considered our longstanding commitment to environmental protection but also decided to get involved in disaster reconstruction. We also considered education a good fit for our foundation. The first reason is that in line with its residential development, Sino-Ocean has accumulated excellent educational resources and we have a strong interest to develop “education- centric” real estate. Secondly, our boss has always had a dream. Since he used to be an instructor at university, he has often been joking that once he retires he would like to go back to university as a teacher. The third reason is, and this is the most important reason, since the foundation has been established we engaged in disaster mitigation. In this field education is a relatively easy entry point for us, especially as we are a small enterprises funded foundation. Micro philanthropy was the fundamental value when the foundation was established. Since we are not a charitable organisation, our investment can not be too big. I would like to emphasize that Sino-Ocean considers both education and environmental protection a source of motivation for the future which is directly linked with the issue of social development. We take societal needs as our starting point and pay attention to the fields of education, poverty alleviation and environmental protection. 1 This is the background to Sino-Ocean Land’s establishment of the foundation and its decision to make environmental protection, poverty alleviation and education key areas of its philanthropic work. Ultimately, when we talk about the core motivation to establish the Sino-Ocean Charity Foundation this can be summarized in the words of our CEO Mr Li Ming. He gave us two aspirations or two achievements to aspire to. The first one was that once we establish the foundation to engage in the philanthropic and charitable sector, we hope that through this platform company employees and senior management can participate. Only by ensuring that everyone participates, that everyone participates in Participation activities which are meaningful for society, this way employees can learn about a sense of responsibility and nourish it. Once a sense of responsibility has been nourished, employees thus will respect what the company offers for them, respect customers. In terms of our future reputation in society as well the products we develop the first required achievement by our boss is that we meet the expectation of society and our clients. The second expected achievement is that our philanthropic projects have a positive effect on the people we serve, that they actually yield actual results. We are not doing this to chase fame. One of our aspirations is to ensure that the money we spend, the small investments we make, aren’t squandered. AF: That is very interesting. When you choose from your philanthropic projects, do you have some specific standards? You just mentioned some of the requirements of your boss towards your work. Do you have any further criterion? When you engage in your internal decision-making process, to what extent do you ask yourself how the Chinese government would see these philanthropic projects? Is this something that has an effect on your decision-making? DT: The core of the foundation is based on projects which realise their societal and philanthropic objectives. We had the choice to either establish a grant-making foundation Self-operating (zizhuxing jijinhui) or a self-operating foundation (yunzuoxing jijinhui). The CEO of foundation Sino-Ocean Land stated that the main intention was to educate its staff. The performance of the foundation would be measured against the number of employees and executives participating in this line of work. In order to meet this request, we became a self-operating and not a grant-making foundation. This means that we establish our own projects, which we also implement ourselves. In terms of the projects we fund, they need to come under the declared philanthropic direction of poverty alleviation, education and environmental protection. We focus on whether or not these projects help drive employee engagement and have an impact which leads to more people participating in them. This basically answers the first question about the selection standards for our projects. As a self-operating foundation our first step was to form projects. The established projects and the fact that the company funds them led us to consider the company background and the areas the company concerns itself with.