Testimonial #7: Nayong Association

Nayong Association is based on Nayong, a poverty-stricken area in Guizhou Province. Taking the network as the platform, it carries out various public welfare activities to aid education.

We were introduced to Transparent Fish Fund in February 2013 through an email.  We would see the organization's name show up from time to time, but little did we know that we would one day become partners.

The seed fund allowed us to pay full-time wages for our program managers and allow us the resources we need to function properly. This was huge for us. In addition, we received help with capacity building. It was difficult getting used to some of the technology, but we eventually were able to use it effectively. 

Because of this extra support, we were able to hire staff that helped with special projects and the Feng sisters joined the Nayong Loving team. We had our stumbling blocks in the beginning, but my colleague Wang was often there to remind me, "Small errors and road blocks on the way are inevitable, but with TLC and attention,  I am sure it will become bigger and better ".  

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We talk about some of the views of the current public service environment with Wang Jun, such as grass-roots administrative difficulties in raising funds. Wang suggested that we publish every public welfare activity we conduct for total transparency. In addition, he suggested that along with the activities, we should disclose the  various costs arising from so that people can see exactly where their donations are going. This way,  they will be more willing to fund agency administrative expenses. Later, according to Wang Jun, the teacher recommends that we each report the actual costs incurred. The person in charge at the time of docking with Transparent Fish Fund, told me in mid-October 2013, Wang had personally been to Nayong, and went to Nayong Loving's office. He has personally visited the villages in the mountains that in which we are fundraising for and met with the competent authorities of Nayong Loving, or Nayong County Civil Affairs Leadership.  Wang expressed a significant hope to reach transparency to support administrative costs in order to become partners with Transparent Fish Fund. 

One day early in January 2014, Transparent Fish Fund sent me a message:. "Congratulations, Nayong Loving has become Transparent Fish Fund partner! Starting next,  year you can submit a budget to us for a seed fund" Although I have been looking forward to Nayong Loving becoming a Transparent Fish Fund partner for a while, I was still surprised by this news. We were required to submit information and evidence, which seemed like a tedious process and would ensue an extensive approval process. How were we accepted them? See my doubts?  Wang explained to me, she said, with data collected from previous visits and careful time and observation, they saw that our organization as honest and responsible and aided by a strong volunteer team. Since the establishment of Nayong Loving as a partner with Transparent Fish Fund, we've been required to write her report containing the start time of each project, the amount of money involved involved, and the number of beneficiaries. Even the Nayong Loving staff organization structure, development difficulties, the current demand are to be explained in a very detailed report.. Once again, I was shocked with the the amount of help Transparent Fish Fund gave us; they did not give us any pressure and took a lot of time and effort to collect all the information we needed (collecting a variety of channels such as personal visits, understanding the local government, browsing  agency website and microblogging. etc.) , in order to ensure a comprehensive collection of the information. From there, they determine our needs and give help we need most!

During June of this year, a Suzhou Ltd. Co learned about our cause through the Transparent Fish Fund website, and with their credibility, they donated 56,000 yuan to Nayong Loving in order to establish university dreams, libraries, and other projects. We are eternally grateful for this company's donations! This wouldn't have been possible without Transparent Fish Fund's help, not only through direct financial assistance, but  more importantly, for promoting our transparency and spreading awareness. The project is certainly transparent, so caring businesses and individuals in the community are now more likely to trust and support our causes and direct us to more funding sources. 
During August of this year, Nayong Loving transferred funds to carry out projects to raise student grants and sent students to school, but the last six students have not been able to receive grants.  In desperation, we resorted to Transparent Fish Fund, and being completely sympathetic with our difficulties, decided to grant funding. This is Transparent Fish Fund's attitude: When their partners have difficulties, they will always be there to help! Thus, we will receive the necessary help to make sure the project goes smoothly!    Transparent Fish Fund has been helping NGOs establish a clear and transparent financial system, give feedback where needed, and develop special grassroots public service financial software. In early September, received a trial version of the software and we tried to record a few after months of financial data, but the software's "independent models" do not have access to this basic design. We are finalizing any institution after the remittance donation purposes and without prior consultation purposes remitted again with us.  The software has been a bit iffy to us, so we reported that to Transparent Fish Fund. Transparent Fish Fund's attitude has truly impressed us again: they will respect the views of partners in every detail, will be racking their brains for partners convenient and practical and efficient financial assistant software. They are truly so helpful!

There are such a powerful organization behind the multi-angle, all-round effort to support and help us. With them, our grassroots NGO transparent public service vision will be achieved. Everything looks good now...

Original article written by Yan Song, translated by Katie Lan and edited by Yanyan Zhang