In fact, legal status promises a rare liberty. Hand on heart, Xu Yongguang says Project Hope has never had a single instance of government department interference. "The China Youth Development Foundation is very independent of government. During these last 16 years, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League has not even sent one single person over to our foundation. They know we only bring credit to them, not problems."

　　As one of only seven national charity organizations in Chinese mainland with State Council permission to enjoy a permanent 100-percent tax deduction, the Chinese Foundation for Lifeline Express can collect money, and lots of it.

　　"I don't think that's a problem for us. At first, we made clear to people the goal why we collect money is to cure cataract patients, and we ensure that the money will truly be used on the patients through a strict financial auditing system," says Fong. "The amount of money we collected from Hong Kong (1997-2004) is roughly the same as from Chinese mainland (2003-2004)."

　　Most grassroots NGOs cannot collect donations publicly, however, because they can't find a superior department or register at the Ministry of Civil Affairs. "Grassroots NGOs often cannot obtain legal validity, and so in most cases they quit halfway," says Zi Zhongjun.

　　In Western countries, mainstream charities are most likely large private foundations. "They also have public foundations, but far fewer than in China," says Xu Yongguang. "One very big public foundation, the United Way of America, monopolizes a great sum of money and supports smaller and grassroots NGOs, which have to apply for money.

　　"This has two good effects: One is small NGOs don't have to waste time collecting money from companies. Second is they have to do good projects and use money rightly; otherwise next time they won't succeed in getting money from United Way. This creates a competitive environment."

　　Small international NGOs often gain financial support from large foreign companies. "For us small NGOs, we really have limited funds. Shell provides us with 150,000 yuan for operating an office, human resources and organizing activities," says Wu Xiaohong, outreach coordinator of Roots & Shoots, Jane Goodall Institute."And Chevron Texaco helps us with some projects. We don't have financial support from Chinese companies. Even though Shell helps us every year, we must make sure we create new projects, or otherwise we may experience 'sponsor fatigue'."

　　Collecting money remains the number one problem for grassroots Chinese NGOs. The project Western Sunshine Action is a typical case.

　　"We borrowed 100,000 yuan to cover train tickets for all the volunteers who took part in the Western Sunshine Action last July," says founder Shang Lifu. "Now the Ford Foundation and Samsung pay the expenses for two out of ten areas.I am under enormous pressure financially, but I cannot think of that too much..." Shang and four colleagues spend their spare time organizing university students to teach in poor villages.

　　"Lots of companies are watching us to see if we can keep this up, and then they will be able to make a decision about whether or not to give us money. I totally understand this because there are countless cases in China where unscrupulous people have profited from others' mercy."

　　Abuse and transparency

　　Indeed. Southern Weekend ran a story headlined "Tracing Fake Letters of Project Hope" on November 29, 2001, revealing that Tang Chunna, who worked at the Education Office in Fengcheng District, Xuanhan County, Sichuan province, had embezzled 5,400 yuan from Project Hope by faking letters on behalf of students to Shanghai donors.

　　"Even if it's something so bad we never expected it and couldn't prevent it, I accept we must take responsibility because the donors gave us good money and we should guarantee its good use," says Xu Yongguang.

　　To avoid repetition, Project Hope adopted "Direct Express." Project Hope was alarmed to discover that the cash journey from donor to child had sometimes involved more than 20 stages of official bureaucracy. Project Hope instead simply set up private accounts for underprivileged students at the China Agriculture Bank. Each semester, the Foundation transfers part of the tuition fees to the account. Eligible students withdraw their money directly from the bank.

　　Sometimes suspicions can be unfounded. From February 28, 2002, Hong Kong media published a series of articles on illegal investment by Project Hope. Their source: "Somebody who used to work at CYDF." CYDF responded by revealing that a former member of staff had been trying to blackmail the organization by threatening "no-smoke-without-fire" negative publicity. The Foundation then invited a thorough audit. The subsequent audit found no corruption whatsoever among the CYDF leadership, according to Gu Xiaojin, CYDF secretary-general. From 2002, Zhongtianheng Accountancy was hired to audit the China Youth Development Foundation and the audit report is now published on the official website.

　　The new Foundation Management Regulations should help curb corruption. Among other things, they stipulate charitable foundations spend 70 percent of donations on their projects every year, and that administration expenses cannot surpass 7 percent of the money spent on projects.

　　Donors also remain an important part of supervising donations. "For Project Hope, behind every item is a pair of supervisory eyes because every donor will want to know how the conditions of the children improve after the donation," says Xu.

　　Best job in world

　　With the possible exception of a few international organizations, working at NGOs promises only a meager salary. "There's been a severe problem that talented people leave local NGOs for international NGOs which have relatively better salaries," says Wu Xiaohong.

　　People who work at charity NGOs must clearly understand that their pay derives from donations and so they can never earn a very high salary, says Fong. "They should be full of love and have a spirit of devotion. In our Hong Kong office, nobody has ever left from the very beginning through the last seven years. In the Beijing office, only one person left: To study. People can obtain three kinds of fulfillment from this line of work: One kind is guaranteed financial payment. Another is spiritual. Finally, there is the satisfaction of improving professional skills through working on a stable and challenging position."

　　It all sounds a bit too good to be true.

　　"No, that is true!" says Wu Xiaohong of Roots & Shoots. "Working here, I have been taken on positions of responsibility from office director to porter. I remember when I met a company boss and tried to persuade him to sponsor us for the first time, I felt so nervous and just didn't know what to say."