Qifang’s Clinton Global Initiative Commitment Helps Sichuan Girls

Qifang founder Calvin Chin announced a new Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to help rural schoolgirls in Sichuan province, in partnership with an American non profit called 1990 Institute.  Qifang is a microlending platform that focuses on making educational loans for Chinese students.  It started its history with the concept of for-profit person-to-person loans, but has morphed to include a conduit for U.S. donations through 401(c)3 non profit organizations that can accept tax-deductible charitable donations.

According to the company, there are three components of their program:

Financial support for college expenses:  Qifang will use its social lending platform to raise an estimated $1000-1200 USD per student per year as grants and loans for qualified students who have previously had their secondary education sponsored and will be graduating from high school at the end of the 2009-2010 academic year.

Mentoring:  Qifang will also develop one-to-one and one-to-many, life-long mentoring and support relationships between college sponsors and students and between student peers.

Community development: the loan process will require college majors in skills necessary in their communities such as education, medicine and law, and will feature programs for debt relief for students who return to work in their communities for two years after graduation.

Blogger and US/China consultant Aimee Barnes conducted an interview with Calvin at the Clinton Global Initiative 2009 Annual Meeting.  Calvin remarked on his new partnership:

In the past, everything we had been doing focused mostly on China, so the sponsors for the loans have been in China as well. The CGI commitment is a cooperation [with a not-for-profit organization] based here in the US called the 1990 Institute. It’s made up of some pretty successful Chinese-Americans who [organized] in 990 and had a heart for working and giving back to China. About ten years ago they created a particular project called the Spring Bud program for three counties in Shaanxi Province, where they chose 1,000 schoolgirls and sponsored their education through primary and secondary. Now, most education is free- for compulsory education- but of course there are other expenses. So, we sponsored these 1,000 schoolgirls and the first class is graduating this Spring. We are working with the 1990 Institute to ensure that these girls have a chance to have higher education. For us, it’s quite new in that 1) we are working with an international non-profit- in this case, the US- and we’re going to give tax deductions to people who are lending into the platform, into the loan. Basically, sponsors will make a gift to 1990 Institute and we won’t be able to take those funds out, but those gifts will fund loans. Spring Bud actually introduced this interesting hybrid in that, not only will these schoolgirls get these loans but that after two years, there will be loan forgiveness. We’re trying to cultivate community leaders in these disadvantaged areas. We’re very excited about it! It’s kind of a new, deeper engagement than we’ve done in the past.

Calvin agreed with me that China was terribly underepresented here at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting and had some insightful thoughts on people’s attitudes toward China here at the conference:

Elliott: Obviously because there are so few people from China here, you’ve probably had a lot of interesting conversations with folks who are interested in learning more about China. What do you think you’re sharing that’s most interesting in terms of helping people understand the social enterprise environment in China?

Calvin: That’s a great question. It’s easy for people not engaged in China to think only of the Olympics, the economic miracle, this idea of the G2 and China being a developed country, a world leader. So, when you talk about needs in China, it’s not always obvious. Along those lines, you hear [questions like] “how does China grow in a sustainable fashion” or “how does China manage the demand for 300 million cars?” These types of issues are about wealth. [The conversations are] much less about the rural poverty issues that are more commonly spoken about regarding South Asia, East Africa and Latin America.

Elliott: So, you’re helping them have a more balanced view of these issues?
Calvin: I think so. I wouldn’t overstate how much people don’t understand, but it’s much less talked about. We’re reminding them about the 800- to 900- million people who live in rural China. The second important thing that we’re trying to share is about social ventures, particularly that there is a lot of creativity, there is a lot of innovation, and there is a lot of dynamism in China. It’s not about the typical questions [regarding] government control or “isn’t education free?”- these types of things that point to the typical idea of a “socialist” or “communist” China. That’s the other thing that we can try to help people understand.

Go read the entire post at Aimee Barnes’ blog.

The insight I got from Calvin’s comments was that the narrative of China as a “rising superpower” or  “fragile superpower” is so focused on China’s economic ascent that China’s vast social and economic problems are not top of mind.  The giant Olympic sized “face projects” of 2008 have created a certain readjustment of people’s perceptions of China as a vibrant, modern superpower.  However, Westerners need to learn to hold a vast number of contradictions in their head in order to gain some understanding of modern China today.  Its not clear to me how the congested media environment of today’s information consumers can help Westerners gain a more complete and accurate view of what is going on in China.  Only by bringing people together to work on issues of common interest–environment, energy, internet governance, economy, business and international affairs–can we gain shared understanding that will help us create a more resilient world that can sustain future systemic shocks.

Congratulations Calvin on your continued progress with Qifang!