MilliCharity Elections
and Sponsorship Changes
December was a busy month for MilliCharity. First, there were the MilliCharity elections. This meeting brought us a new president as well as a big change in sponsorship. There were also 2 parties which I’ve covered here.
MilliCharity Board of Directors Meeting – December 2015
MilliCharity does a number of charitable projects, but the central focus is on providing financial assistance to children in need so that they can continue their education. In doing this, MilliCharity relies on the standards set by Uncle Zhang when others asked how to join him in helping children (he’s been doing this for about 27 years now). Instead of asking people to send him money, he’d provide the sponsors with the contact information for the child and the sponsor would send the money directly to the child. This is called direct giving, and is one thing which sets MilliCharity apart from most other charity groups. Those groups collect money and use some or all of it to cover operational expenses, thus not sending the full amount donated to the person or project intended by the donor. In MilliCharity, only members of the board of directors are permitted to provide funds needed to run the organization. Sponsor donations go directly from the sponsors to the children. Some other projects with multiple donors (such as building a school) do have the charity collect the money, but 100% of the amount collected is sent to fund the project. As soon as a project’s targeted amount is reached, that project no longer accepts donations.
Sponsorship Changes
Currently, the government provides free education for both primary and middle school. Donations to children in grades 1-9 is 500 RMB per semester (sponsors may send more if they wish), and is primarily intended to cover the costs of food. In many cases, this has allowed students to remain in school instead of having to quit and take a low-paying job just to be able to eat. This amount will remain unchanged for now. At the high school level, the current amount is 1200 RMB per term. Due to increasing costs associated with high school, this has been increased to 1500 RMB per semester.
For college, the sponsorship previously was variable. It was supposed to cover the admission fee and some of the first year’s tuition and then ended after the first year. This made the amount unpredictable, since the fees vary widely between universities. Happily, the government has been taking steps to provide financial assistance to make sure students admitted to universities can pay the admission fee and aren’t forced to drop out because they can’t afford the tuition. Because of this was decided to alter the one time payment (which could range from a few thousand RMB to tens of thousands) to be a flat 1500 RMB per semester to help with books and other expenses. This would no longer be only for the first year, but would extend to as long as 4 years.
This new plan for university students provides 2 advantages. First, sponsors of multiple children don’t have to worry about a sudden need for large amounts of cash if several children are admitted to top ranked universities at the same time. Second, this continues the relationship between the student and sponsor for several more years.
MilliCharity Elections
Elections were done in 2 steps. First, the board had to select the Central Committee (aks Executive Board. To do this, each board member was given a list of all board members (excluding Uncle Zhang – as our founder, he’s got a permanent seat on the Central Committee). Two board members asked to not be voted for. From the remaining names, we were told to select 7. Then the votes were counted. It turned out there was a 2-way tie for the 7th position, so we ended up electing 8 members to the Central Committee instead of figuring out how to resolve a tie. I’m not sure whether I’m more flattered or frightened that I was only 3 votes short of making it a 3-way tie for 7th place. 
Uncle Zhang and the rest of the Central Committee retreated to a separate room to select the officers. The rest of us moved to a different room where dinner was being prepared. Eventually, the central committee emerged to announce who our 3rd president would be. Outgoing president An Ge’s successor was Lian Jie.
Front: Uncle Zhang. Back (L-R): New Pres. Lian Jie, Outgoing Pres. An Ge, New VP Zhang Jie
I’m pleased that MilliCharity has developed a good way to allow for smooth transitions of officers. I also promised I’d do my best to run for the presidency if I ever can get my Mandarin developed enough for real conversations and to give speeches without having someone translate for me.
The elections were followed by dinner, which was, as always, highly formal and very serious. 
MilliCharity – Silly people, serious charity
For those who can read squiggle Chinese, you can visit MilliCharity.com to learn more about the organization.
Note the first: RMB = CNY = Chinese Yuan. Currently, 1 US dollar is about equal to 6.5 RMB. If you want a more exact figure, you can check the latest rates at XE.com or by typing 1 usd to cny in most search engines.
Note the second: Some areas of China (including Guangdong) use the final syllable of a person’s given name followed by Ge (for brother) or Jie (for sister) as a nickname. MilliCharity uses this form of address for most of the members. In the group, I had been getting addressed by my full Chinese name, but have been getting called Long Ge more and more often.
