Awards and aid for grassroots innovators

Considering that 100,000 yuan is not a large amount of money for one person in this modern age, what can it be used for?

For Huaihe River Guardian, a non-profit organization（NPO), 100,000 yuan would enable it to set up more monitoring locations along Huaihe River and more water purifying facilities for local residents, Huo Daishan, founder of the NPO told chinadaily.com.cn on May 5 in Shanghai.

The Henan-based NPO, which registered with the Ministry of Civil Affairs of China, gained a 100,000-yuan award from the Innovation Initiative for Non-profits on May 6 for its success in gaining cooperation from a high-polluting company.

For Shanghai-based CharyoU Volunteer Service Center, the 100,000-yuan award will fund research and development for digitalizing their board games, Zhang Ning, founder of the NPO, told chinadaily.com.cn on May 7.

CharyoU has currently developed reality board games that educate players about environmental protection . The NPO gained the award for its pioneering activities.

The two organizations are among 11 grassroots NPOs from China that received 100,000-yuan awards each from the Innovation Initiative for Non-profits.

The Innovation Initiative for Non-profits was launched by Intel China in 2010 under the guidance of The Ministry of Civil Affairs of China. Its initial purpose was to award NPOs that use Internet Communication Technology efficiently. But it has expanded to all innovators conducting non-profit activities using or not using advanced technology.

Cui Minyan, executive director of Safe Kids Worldwide–China, told chinadaily.com.cn on May 5 that an NPO is set up for solving a social problem but many of them lack money. They need to get funding from a corporation or a foundation but when the problem is solved or partly solved, the money is used up, Cui said. They need to fundraise again but it's not like a company which can scale up by reinvesting using the money it has earned from selling the products, Cui added.

While money is important for an NPO to function, having expertise is just as important, Xu Youngguang, director-general of Narada Foundation said at the NGO-Foundation Dialogue on Collaboration and Innovation on May 6.

Xu said that grassroots NPOs are still too weak in capacity-building. He gave an example by saying that the Beijing Municipal Government planned in 2010 to buy 100 million yuan of service from NPOs but only 5 million yuan was successfully spent partly because the services that NPOs could provide were not satisfactory. The dialogue was part of the Innovation Initiative for Non-profits.

But people learn and change fast when communicating with others, CY Yeung, director of Corporate Social Responsibility of Intel China, told reporters after the Innovation Initiative for Non-profits awards ceremony.

Yeung said that in 2010, some NPOs presented ideas to compete for the award but in 2012, all 50 finalists presented actual cases to explain what they are doing and why they need the money. Yang said they improved their capabilities by communicating with their rivals and the judges and receiving training.,

Yang added that the Innovation Initiative for Non-profits committee has already published a book named the Power of Innovation, collecting cases of NPOs that received awards in 2011.

Wendy Hawkins, executive director of Intel Foundation, which approved the Innovation Initiative for Non-profits in 2010, said that funding the non-profit sector, like funding the education sector, is catalytic for innovation.

The 2012 Innovation Initiative for Non-profits, renamed from 2012 Innovation Awards for Non-profits, was held by Intel, China Foundation For Poverty Alleviation and Navada Foundation, with over 30 partners.

Major segments of the initiative, including the NPOs' board presentations of their activities, the awards ceremony, and dialogue between companies, NGOs and foundations were held in Shanghai and seven other cities around China from May 1 to May 6.

The awards ceremony will become a biannual event, with the next one to be held in 2014, as the ceremony itself took up 70 to 80 percent of the committee's time and energy, said Yeung. The focus will revert to building a better platform to allow more companies, more organizations and also the government to participate, Yeung added.