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ciaries to become independent without a continuous flow of donations. 2. The Rich Men: Stingy or Savvy A survey reveals that fewer than 100,000, or 1 percent, of mainland China’s 10 million registered enterprises have records of charitable donations. To date, charity has relied heavily on the generosity of middle-income individuals on the mainland and big donors from Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and foreign countries. Major organizations, such as the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation and the China Charity Federation, report that on average, half of their funds come from small individual donations, one-third from non-mainland donors and the rest from mainland enterprises, with the overwhelming majority of those state-owned. In Shanghai, one of China’s largest cities, the Shanghai Education Development Foundation, the Soong Ching Ling Foundation and the Shanghai Charity Foundation derive 50, 70 and 30 percent of their donations, respectively, from non-mainland sources. However, it would be unfair to conclude that entrepreneurs on the mainland are utterly aloof. Some 90 percent of private businesspeople have given donations at least once. Sixty percent of the funds donated to the Shanghai Charity Foundation come from domestic private entrepreneurs. Although many are willing to give, the amounts they are willing to donate are miniscule. “Apart from miserliness, private entrepreneurs face a couple of problems that prevent them from giving donations. They are reluctant to mention them in the public,” said Ma Zhongqi, deputy secretary general of the Shanghai Charity Foundation. First, China’s newly rich are afraid that public donations will bring trouble because of inadequacies that still exist in the Chinese law on the protection of private property. The constitutional revision to protect private property passed in March by the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, should add new impetus to the growth of charitable donations in China. Second, some private entrepreneurs hide their wealth for fear of causing envy or hatred, or possibly even endangering their safety or their families’. Many an entrepreneur feels that if he gives money to one organization, others will learn about his generosity and camp on his doorstep asking for more donations. Because almost all the charity is led by heavyweights whom he cannot afford to offend, he must give to them all. Thus, many businesspeople are afraid to make donations or make their donations public. Moreover, says Deng Shengguo, deputy director of the NGO Research Institute at the prestigious Tsinghua University, as in most other third-world countries, many successful Chinese entrepreneurs have just finished their primary accumulation of capital. Uppermost in their minds now is how to increase their wealth and further develop their enterprises. They don’t have much energy to care about charity. Deputy Secretary-General Shen Haiping of the Soong Ching Ling Foundation says that although most people don’t do good works for the sake of fame or other benefits, more people would be inclined toward generosity if they felt they would be repaid with reputation and advantages. On April 30, 2003, to encourage donations for the battle against SARS, the State taxation Administration announced that it would grant 100 percent deductibility for all cash and materials that companies donated for the control of the disease. Donations from enterprises (few of them privately owned) soared