Although social welfare groups in recent weeks have seen an increase in the number of small donations they receive because of the “Chen Shu-chu effect” generated by vegetable vendor Chen Shu-chu (陳樹菊), who was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine for her charitable donations, environmental protection groups said they were still operating on tight budgets because the total amount of donations they receive has not increased.
The Taiwan Environmental Information Association (TEIA) has built one of the largest Mandarin-language environmental information Web sites, which boasts more than 10,000 hits per day and about 80,000 reports and articles. However, despite receiving awards almost every year, it still lacks money to pay employees’ salaries this month, association secretary-general Chen Juei-ping (陳瑞賓) said.
Chen said that although he had recently received a NT$20,000 donation from a friend who had saved the money for his wedding fund, he was still borrowing money.
Chen said he used to borrow money from the association’s directors, supervisors and his teachers. However, he has already spent almost all the NT$2 million (US$63,000) he borrowed to run the association and had no idea who to turn to next.
Green parties from more than 20 countries recently gathered in Taipei for the Second Congress of the Asia-Pacific Greens Network, an international event for the world’s environmental protection groups. However, Green Party Taiwan (GPT), one of the event’s organizers, said it suffered a financial loss of NT$700,000 to NT$800,000 by hosting the event because of a lack of donations.
GPT secretary-general Leo Chang (張宏林) said the party was allocating funds from other departments to make up for the financial loss. He said that half of the party’s annual budget of NT$4 million depended on small donations from long-term contributors, and that the amount of small donations had not increased in recent years.
Meanwhile, the long-established Taiwan Environmental Protection Union operates on an annual budget of approximately NT$3.6 million.
A group of academics and professors make regular donations to the union, and when the environmental protection movement was more active in the early years, the union bought an old apartment as its office. Therefore, it has been able to save money that would otherwise have been used for rent.
Secretary-general Chou-han (李卓翰) said the union usually receives NT$25,000 per month in small donations, but added that the amount had not increased recently. To expand its income sources, it is participating in projects led by the Cabinet’s National Youth Commission to make money while promoting environmental education, he said.
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