Givology: Another China P2P

Courtney

We have mentioned a couple Chinese/English P2P sites in China working in the same world social venture world we are including 51Give and QiFang. Now there is now another site to add to that list called Givology.

Givology is an internet community that empowers individual donors to connect with students and communities in need of education support. The name comes from the team's motto: "Give to learn, learn to give - where the philosophy of giving is something that can be mastered learning to give, " according to Givology vice president Xiang Li in a recent article in the Daily Pennsylvania. It was started by a group of University of Pennsylvania 2008 alumni, savvy in the ways of computer programming, to give donors a more participatory hand in education around the world.  

The site reminds me of DonorsChoose - a P2P platform that allows users to fund needs posted by school teachers around the country.

Givology is different from DonorsChoose in that:

1. It is international. Givology launched its site with a focus on China, but is opening up the model for use by other countries including Iran, Equador, India, and Vietnam. 
2. It focuses on individual students. On Donorschoose, teachers list very specific needs like books, pencils, computers, etc. On Givology, stduents tuition needs are posted. Donors can contribute an amount to give to an individual child.

Similar to Wokai, Givology has really honed in on the need for transparency in China  focusing on the issue of transparency. Transparency allows donors to see the exact use of their funds. This acts as both a check for the non-profit to make sure funds are going where they are intended and as as incentive for the donor to see the sctual real impact of their dollars. 

While transparency is important for any non-profit, it is even more important for Chinese-focused non-profits. Chinese non-profit world has a reputation for squandering money and for not ultizing funds for their marketed use. At Wokai, we have come across this opinion time and time again when trying to raise funding for Wokai. 

Fortunately, technology has allowed us to avoid this tension point altogether. Donors do not need to take our word for it, they can check in to track their funds any day of the week. They can see where they are in the process and what is the next step.

I think the next challenge is for sites like Wokai and Givology, who focus on the hyper specific need of P2P transparency in China, to work together. After all, we are targeting the same user base: donors around the world with a soft spot in their heart for China.