In a country like China where the government used to be the only organizer of charity activities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have had great difficulty playing a larger role in helping those in need.

But with the rise in charitable interests, as well as increasing demand for public participation, Chinese NGOs have become a more influential group in the country's transformation in recent years.

Via widespread use of e-mail, social networking sites, instant messaging services and online payment tools, many domestic organizations are now gaining the public's trust by making their operations more transparent. Individual Chinese are also finding it more convenient to participate in events organized by various NGOs.

"The Internet is the lifeline for our organization," said Isaac Hu, spokesman of the Bethel Foundation, a domestic NGO that has been helping blind children since 2003.

He said almost all of the organization's fundraising and connections with donors are now online.

Established by a French couple in Beijing seven years ago, Bethel Foundation currently has taken in nearly 40 children from across China. The organization hopes to increase the number of children to 70 by the end of this year if it manages to get enough donations.

The most important step to achieve that goal, Hu said, is to hire an employee to take pictures and videos of each child and post them on the Internet. That would enable everyone in the world to see the children, and that they are cared for everyday by the organization.

"Donors like to see where their donations go," Hu said. "Letting more people see the real effect of their contributions, we will raise more funds from the public."

Traditionally, China's charity activities have been dominated by the government, which has taken care of almost everything, from identifying needy recipients to proposing donations and delivering donated goods.

But with the country's market reforms amid the process of social transformation, more and more responsibilities are being taken up by grassroots NGOs.

According to Wang Zhenyao, deputy-secretary of the Social Welfare and Charity Industry Office under China's Ministry of Civil Affairs, charities have become fashionable in China since the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, and the power of the public has proved itself, bringing fundamental change to people's traditional ways of giving.

He said over one million Chinese people came to Sichuan after the earthquake as volunteers without government coordination. Public donations for the disaster reached nearly 70 billion yuan, equivalent to that raised by the government.

However, compared with many government-led foundations, grassroots NGOs often lack the necessary financial and regulatory support. Most of them also experience difficulty winning the trust of wary donators.

But many NGOs said that most of these difficulties could be solved via technological means.

"We use the Internet to promote our plan from the very beginning because it is the most cost-effective way to spread our ideas," said Yu Zhihai, the founder of 1KG.org, an NGO that encourages people to bring needed items to children in nearby schools during hiking trips.

Yu's firm evolved from a personal blog that recorded his personal experiences communicating with poor schoolchildren into an NGO that provides information on about 700 schools in China's rural areas, often short on items such as books, pencils and basketballs.

Participants can contact specific schools on their needs on 1KG.org before personally carrying the supplies to the children. Yu said over 90 percent of the school information is collected and uploaded by participants and his five full-time staff members.

By encouraging participation from donors online through blogs, social networking websites and instant messaging services, 1KG.org soon became one of China's most prestigious domestic NGOs. To date, the organization has helped to bring supplies to over 100,000 school children in rural areas.

"Technology could help small NGOs to have a very big presence and influence," said Clair Deevy, Microsoft's Regional Citizenship manager and Community Affairs Lead for Asia. She said transparency is one of the biggest challenges for Chinese NGOs but that could also become an opportunity if the issue was addressed properly.

Earlier this year, the company launched a campaign in China to help local NGOs with computers and software, and then encourage their employees to set up e-mail and websites for them.

Shen Dongshu, director of Fuping Development Institute (FDI), a non-profit organization established in 2002 by famous Chinese economist Mao Yushi and Tang Min, said the organization is planning to establish an online platform that helps Chinese NGOs to build up their IT systems .

"The development of NGOs is still in the early stages," said Shen. "But I believe with technology they will survive and thrive."

(China Daily May 21, 2010)