Good deeds unrewarded
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China Daily, November 15, 2011
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Volunteer Zhou Xuanci helps an elderly man following the 2008 earthquake in Anxian county, Sichuan province.[Photo/China Daily] |
The work done by professionals for nonprofit groups, such as a non-governmental organization (NGO), is often undervalued.
And donors don't understand that providing charity does cost money. It isn't free.
So Xu Zhenjun opted to sleep late one Monday and idle away the rainy day. "I am on strike with my two colleagues," Xu, who runs an NGO in Kunming, Yunnan province, said.
Xu, and other NGO professionals, decided not to work on Nov 7. "We didn't go out onto the street with signs, shouting slogans. We simply chose to not show up at work on the first Monday of November," Xu said.
They also posted notices online about their intentions. Xu's aim was to deliver a clear and specific message in the hope of gaining public support. Salaries for nonprofit professionals need to be increased 10 to 20 percent, by the end of this year, he said.
"We (nonprofit professionals) were in short supply 10 years ago and will be 10 years from now because of the poor pay," he said. "A colleague of mine, earning just over 1,000 yuan a month, told me he couldn't afford pork because it was 40 yuan a kilogram in the market. That's pathetic."
A survey conducted in October 2010 by the Narada, Tencent and Liu Hongru Financial Education Foundations found that almost 90 percent of NGO employees earn less than 5,000 yuan ($787) a month.
More than 18 percent of the 5,000 NGOs that participated said their salaries were under 1,000 yuan or they didn't have fixed income. Most who were paid more than 5,000 yuan worked for foundations.
"The younger generation can usually survive for the first couple of years after their graduation," Xu said, "but soon after, they get to marriageable age and figure they've got families to support, and they quit."
Xu is 37 and said he is "all right" financially but is concerned about others who also love the kind of work they do.
Entry-level salaries at NGOs aren't much different from those at for-profit companies, he said, but businesses give pay raises "almost every year, and NGOs can barely do that".
"A few years pass and when you finally get up the nerve to ask for a better salary, you realize that your boss, who has been working in the field for more than 10 years, is earning 3,000 yuan a month - just a little bit more than you."
The survey also showed that only 28 percent of NGO executives have salaries over 5,000 yuan.
Dream vs reality
Friday was Jian Chuntian's last day at China-Dolls, the Beijing NGO that assists people with osteogenesis imperfecta, also called brittle-bone disease. It was also his last day in nonprofits since he started as a volunteer eight years ago.
Why drop out now? "I'm getting married," said Jian, who is 27.
His girlfriend is four years younger and a recent college graduate, so doesn't have much earning power now. Besides, he said, "My parents are old-fashioned and regard my job at an NGO as doing good deeds, but they can hardly understand it as a career. To quit this job is the hardest decision in my life.
"There's too much pressure. I need to buy an apartment in order to get married, and the wedding is costly as well. Many people have said I gave up my dream, but for me, the real dream is based on a foundation of reality."
Wang Yi'ou, the founder of China-Dolls, said, "Jian left without any request for a salary raise because he knew how much we could offer. We understood why he chose to leave."
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