A Study On The Development Of Foundations In Health Sector

Since the first foundation– Chinese Children and Teenagers'Fund founded in 1981, the foundations in China have developed for more than two decades. By the end of 2007, there were 1340 foundations in China, which cover such public service sectors as education, science and technology, health, culture, art, poverty alleviation, environment protection, etc. It can be predicted that the foundations in China will play a more and more important role in improving the third distribution of social wealth, addressing the problems of social inequity and social contradiction, promoting democratization, as the transformation of government function and diversification of social life.Now, China is in the new stage of comprehensive construction well-off society, constructing socialist harmonious society and implementing the viewpoint of scientific development has already become the main melody of social development. Meanwhile, the Chinese health system reform comes to a critical moment, and building basic health care system covering all residents in the urban and rural areas, achieving the goal of Health for All, has been widely accepted by the government and society. In this context, the foundations in the health sector (FHSs) in China have good development opportunities. However, the development of FHSs in China lags behind the foundations in education sector (FESs), and in ST & research sector (FSTSs) obviously. Little quantity, small scale, poor operation status, morbid administration and management, and lack of attention make the FHSs cannot play proper role in promoting the development of health and in constructing socialist harmonious society. Therefore, how to accelerate the development of FHSs in China is an important subject which needs deep research urgently.In this study, the FHSs in Shanghai were selected as the convenience sample. This dissertation includes five chapters. In chapter one, the background, objective, and methodology of this research were introduced. In chapter two, the related basic theories of non-government organization (NGO) including foundation were illustrated. Chapter three demonstrated the general situation of the foundations in USA, Germany, Russia and Taiwan Region through literature review. In chapter four, the current situation of the foundations in China was profiled, and the development situation of FHSs in Shanghai, including scale (quantity, staff, assets, etc.), operation status (income and expenditure, investment and increment, development of commonweal projects), and international cooperation and communication, were emphatically analyzed, as well as the comparison among the situation of FHSs, FDSs and FSTSs. In chapter five, the policy recommendations are put forwards on the basis of analyzing the problems, opportunities and challenges of the development of FHSs in Shanghai.Through analyzing the seven FHSs in Shanghai, it was found that the sustainable development status of them was worrying, and the main problems were: (1) the quantity of FHSs in Shanghai was little, which lags far behind FDSs and FSTSs; (2) lack of public-raising foundations, and their fund raising capacity is weak; (3) the scale of staff is small, and most of them are part-timer (only 1.1 full-time staff in each foundation in average); (4) assets scale is also small, the average value of net assets is only 6.27 million, which is far less than that of FDSs and FSTSs; (5) the financial situation of them is bad , and the singleness of financing channel made them rely on donation excessively; (6) lack of the investment consciousness, and the capacity of fund increment is poor; (7) the quantity and scale of public welfare projects carried out by them are obviously smaller than FDSs and FSTSs, and the social influence is insufficient; (8) the management is relatively lagged behind, and lack of government and social attention.The following policy recommendations are put forwards in this study: (1) to define the development goals to improve the government's administration, and to provide support for the development of FHSs; (2) to reform administration and supervision, and to adopt both plebs supervision and special supervision; (3) to improve the quality of the staff of the foundations; and (4) to enhance international cooperation and communication.