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Updated Sunday, December 7, 2008 9:32 am TWN, By Stephanie Low, CNA



	Street people in Taipei dig in for a warm meal in cold weather. Social service organizations urged higher-income earners to help more people by donating their shopping vouchers to charity. Those giving away the vouchers are eligible for income tax reduction. (CNA) Enlarge Photo

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Weak economy batters much needed charities

There have even been increasing reports of theft of boxes set up by the groups to collect the receipts, owing to the bad economy.

Wu Wan-lan, head of Zenan’s social resources division, said that besides a 20-percent fall in lottery winnings from the receipts, the quantity of used winter clothing donated by the public has also decreased this year.

Amid dwindling resources, the demand for help is rising as an increasingly larger number of people are left unemployed.

While the nine food pantries set up by Zenan around Taiwan have served an average of 300 vagrants per day in the past, the number has doubled recently to 600 people per day, Wu said. With a huge turnout expected at this year’s annual year-end dinner, Zenan is planning to serve food at a total of 1,200 tables around Taiwan, a significant expansion from last year when 400 tables were served, Wu said.

However, the foundation has raised only NT$2 million for the dinner so far, far short of the NT$12 million needed, she said.

Because of the growing difficulties in soliciting donations, applications for subsidies filed by local social groups with United Way Taiwan (UWT) this year have requested a record high of NT$660 million.

The donations received by the fundraiser, meanwhile, are slipping as well.

According to UWT President Edward Way, the amount of each fixed donation directed to the UWT averaged just NT$525 in the first half of this year, down NT$102 from 2007, while the average amount of single, one-time donations has dropped from NT$806 in 2004 to NT$706 this year.

In August alone, total donations received were down NT$10 million from the same month last year, Way said. Facing this reduction in resources, social groups are adopting various cost-saving measures, such as cutting back on electricity use and using video conferencing to avoid travel.

Many of them are also calling on the public to donate supplies and used products. And now, the shopping vouchers that the government is scheduled to issue to the public next month to stimulate consumption are raising the hopes of social groups for new income, as higher-income earners are being encouraged to donate their vouchers to charity.

That may not be enough, however, to ensure the survival of many social groups, especially those less well-known to the public.

The League of Social Welfare Organizations in Taiwan and the League of Taipei Social Welfare have suspended their operations, after recently dismissing their workers and entrusting the custody of their organizations to other groups temporarily.

The government, ironically, is more part of the problem than of the solution. Many organizations contracted by local government authorities to execute various social assistance projects are owed subsidies ranging from NT$100,000 to NT$10 million.

Those debts forced them to petition the Control Yuan for help in August and has led them to consider turning down government cooperation projects in the future, a future that for many social groups and the people they serve is likely to remain as challenging as the economy itself.

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