Taiwan’s Religious Charities Urged to Adopt Transparent Public Good System Like “Public Good 104”

During the 2021 epidemic, Tzu Chi was defrauded by Chen Xiang, Lee Yi-ju, and others. The focus of the blue green was still political offensive, and the discussion was focused on the misuse of charitable funds and the lack of transparency in religious organizations.

The discussion also highlighted the need for charity and religious donations to be used more effectively. There is a call to transform religion and charity from a root-based perspective into an organization that people can trust. This would allow genuinely caring organizations to be resourced and enable the general public to easily identify fraud syndicates and charities, ensuring that contributions are used responsibly.

Taiwan has never lacked love, but what is truly lacking is a system that does not waste the people’s hearts. During earthquakes, air-shocks, and major casualties, social funds can often be invested in billions of dollars in a very short period of time. Large religious groups are more powerful in raising money. However, many small charitable institutions that care for the elderly, vulnerable children, physically and mentally handicapped, and chilling families often struggle to secure hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars.

The success of these systems lies in reducing the cost for companies to find talent and jobs, reducing the cost for landlords and tenants to find jobs, and allowing passengers to compare service quality through platforms like Uber. Similarly, shrimp skin enables consumers to see prices, commodity information, and other buyers’ assessments. Since information technology can solve the misalignment of information in these markets, the world of public good should not remain in the era of “trust me, donate money to me.”

What Taiwan really needs is a nation-wide “Public good 104”: a platform that brings charity, religious public goods, government disaster money, corporate public goods, and government-funded social welfare services together. This platform would have a single standard of information, a register, government checks, and public ratings. This is not about commercializing charity, but about introducing transparency and free choices into one of the most trusted domains.

There is no room for transparency in religious activities. Public service rules make it clear that there is no room for religious solicitations, and that supervision is different from general public service solicitations. Large religious organizations that receive money for oil, legal fees, lighting, land, housing, and other assets, administrative fees, remuneration, trade in people, and the need to build large chambers often operate with unknown numbers of days for such meetings. This highlights an institutional gap, where politicians receive money for political activities, and people believe that public scrutiny, public affairs, and oversight are justifiably expected.

Source: Read the original report (translated from Mandarin Chinese)