The American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) has started to provide education to newly-independent Chinese associations that have been weaned off government funding and management, a process that is gaining steam in China and transforming the country’s associations landscape.
Chinese associations must now learn how to be sustainable and survive on their own which means being able to generate their own income, and to achieve that requires professionalising their association management, a concept not yet well accepted, said Maria Tong, ASAE’s China representative.
Since the establishment of an ASAE office in Beijing three years ago, it has started educating associations about their role in the society and ways to professionalise, Tong said on the sidelines of the Associations Summit 4, organised by the Philippine Council of Associations and Association Executives last week.
In the long term, she said ASAE wants to be the thought leader in China and to be the platform for linking China associations’ international counterparts.
Tong said it takes time for the Chinese government to recognise ASAE’s position but things are improving now with the government enabling associations, which are mainly government-managed and funded, to be independent.
