A Study On The Growth Path Of Community Foundations

In 2008,China’s first community foundation "Taoyuanju Public Welfare Development Foundation" was established,and now the community foundation has been explored and developed in China for more than ten years.In June 2017,the concept of "community foundation" was officially written into the central document,and community foundation has attracted widespread attention as the main body of absorbing social resources and innovating community governance.Judging from the existing research,the research on community foundations in Chinese academic circles is in its infancy,and the total amount of research is relatively small overall.Most of the research on community foundations is empirical description articles,using less quantitative or qualitative research methods,and its theoretical perspective is mainly limited to resource dependence theory,supply and demand theory,etc.,and the research perspective is relatively single,and most of them are in the early stage of theoretical analysis.In view of the shortcomings of existing literature,this paper combines embedding theory and resource dependence theory to construct an analytical framework that affects the growth and maturity of community foundations.On this basis,this paper adopts the qualitative comparative analysis method of fuzzy sets,and selects 36 community foundations of China Foundation Center Network as research objects.From the perspective of embedding and resource supply,the realization path of community foundation growth and maturity is explored from seven dimensions.It is found that:(1)The maturity of community foundations is the result of multiple factors,and this paper finds three paths to promote the maturity of community foundations: dependent,embedded and balanced.Among them,dependency means that community foundations need to promote the formation of grant-based community foundations by relying on direct government support,that is,the support of distributional tools and guiding tools,such as direct financial subsidies or tax exemptions.Embedded means that even if basic,market-oriented and guided tools do not exist,community foundations can be deeply embedded in the local community and supported by government distribution tools.Balanced means that when cultural embedding and structural embedding from the perspective of embedding and distributive tools and guiding tools from the perspective of resource dependence exist at the same time,the growth and maturity of community foundations can be promoted,and this path reflects the balance between embedding and resource dependence of community foundations.(2)Structural embedding plays the most prominent role in promoting the maturity of community foundations,and market-oriented tools are not key to the growth and maturity of community foundations.(3)Foundational tools may indirectly affect the maturity of community foundations,and their ability to interpret results is impaired.(4)The development path embedded in the community is the root of the sustainable development of the community foundation.Based on the results of qualitative comparative analysis,this paper puts forward policy suggestions to promote the growth of community foundations in China: First,pay attention to distributive tools and guiding tools to adjust the direction of government cultivation.Specifically: increasing tax incentives;Innovate government subsidy methods;Optimize the internal governance structure and increase the organization of professional training.Second,expand the depth and breadth of community foundations rooted in communities to promote embedded development.Specifically: increase the intensity of structural embedding and innovate cognitive embedding forms;Appropriately cultivate a culture of philanthropy and embed culture according to local conditions.