A Study On The Development Of Modern Charity In China

Modern philanthropy is a kind of social enterprise initiated by individual voluntarily, in order to designedly improve the living standards of the social vulnerable groups through professional organization. Contrasting to traditional charity, individuals are main sponsors. A number of highly specialized organizations pursuing of efficiency is one of the major part of the modern philanthropy. Modern philanthropy is consistent internally with the individual-based modern society. It was founded and developed with the market economy and modern democratic politics after the industrial revolution. It goes beyond mercy and compassion,"autonomy, equality, coexistence " is the core value of modern philanthropy. A series of incentive and supervision institutions are dispensable to the sustainable development of modern philanthropy.China’s modern philanthropy started very late. It was manufactured by the strong executive power. Charitable tradition of China has a long history, but the development of philanthropy is not easy. Charitable activities sponsored by individuals were always the supplement and coordination to the governmental strength. Since the late Qing Dynasty, Chinese modern philanthropy had sprouted. But in the turmoil and continuous years of war, it is very difficult to grow strongly. Even the development of modern philanthropy had been interrupted in the beginning of the PRC. Until now, the main problems are the weakness of organizations, the inperfect of institutions and the lackness of the modern philanthropy conception. Analyzing by the dialectical materialism, the development of China’s modern philanthropy, has both favorable conditions to factors provided by market economy, but also restricted by the distribution of income.On the administrative factor, access and supervision of the charity organizations have many drawbacks. The expansion of the citizen’s property rights is good to philanthropy donation, but the weakness of the sense of civic responsibility has reduced greatly the citizen participation rate. Although the traditional charitable conceptions are helpful to persuade people to care about others, they are more likely to persue fortune and family’s prosperous. That is incompatible with the opening of modern philanthropy.Based on the above analyses, we should first clear the responsibilities of government and organizations to develop the modern philanthropy in China. The governmental responsibility is to strength the institutional construction. The organizations must enhance the core competence, improve the ability of internal management and its ability to mobilize resources, thus can it win the credibility of public; Finally, we should vigorously publicize the modern philanthropy conceptions and introduce it to all levels of education to enhance the sense of civic responsibility. We should emphasize the self-conduct consciousness, equal consciousness and responsibility consciousness.