In the Tzu Chi foundation, the regular committee members are responsible for the fundraising task. To become a regular committee member, you have to own 40 donors at least and give all the fundraising money to the Tzu Chi foundation every month. Before
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becoming a regular committee member, you should work for a certain regular committee member, who is called “Hen” in the Tzu Chi jargon, until you have 40 donors.
And then you can have your own fundraising book and do fundraising task by yourself.
The rank of the Tzu Chi committee member in the period of paperwork is shown as the following picture.
Figure 4.2 The rank of the Tzu Chi committee member in the period of paperwork
The fundraising is very important for Tzu Chi to operate well, so the regular committee members play the primary roles in the consolidated flow model. Their responsibilities include fundraising, collecting fundraising money, recording fundraising data, remitting fundraising money and uploading fundraising data to the Tzu Chi foundation. The communication between Solicitor (the regular committee member) and other roles is introduced as follows:
1. Solicitor – Donor
Solicitor collects fundraising money from Donor regularly, but how often depends on Donor. It can be monthly, once few months, or once a year. Solicitor usually makes an appointment with Donor via phone before collecting fundraising money. Solicitor will give Donor last time’s donation receipts and interact with them while fundraising, because the mission of Tzu Chi is not only fundraising but also care for Donor. Therefore, Solicitor will greet Donor, tell them the recent activities of Tzu Chi, and invite them for attending. If Donor is willing to talk more, Solicitor will introduce the mission of Tzu Chi via the Tzu Chi magazines and give them the magazine. Some Solicitor will prepare the gifts, such as Jing Si aphorism’s cards ( ), handmade charms or health food made from Tzu Chi, to give Donor for wishes.
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Breakdown: Solicitor will pay the missing fundraising money
Solicitor will pay the missing fundraising money while discovering there is an error in the fundraising records. They are too shy to ask Donor the missing fundraising money, and they think it is all their faults.
2. Solicitor – Helper
In some cases, Solicitor has too many donors or has some donors that live too far, and they will request their intern committee members or family to collect the fundraising money from Donor. The intern committee member, who is called “Chicken” in the Tzu Chi jargon, is assigned some donors from Solicitor to collect the fundraising money, and also be asked to give the money to Solicitor on time every month. Sometimes Donor comes personally to give the fundraising money while Solicitor being not at home, Solicitor’s family will collect the money. If the donors are colleagues or neighbors of Solicitor’s family, Solicitor will ask their family to collect the fundraising money for the convenience. So the intern committee members and family play the role of Helper.
Helper usually records the donor’s name and the amount of fundraising money for Solicitor checking.
3. Solicitor - Collecting Center - Tzu Chi Foundation
When the fundraising task is finished, Solicitor has to remit all the fundraising money to Tzu Chi Foundation, and then send the fundraising book and the remittance receipt to Tzu Chi Foundation. After receiving the fundraising books, the staff of Tzu Chi Foundation will key in the fundraising records from the fundraising books into computer and check with the amount of money. If there is no problem, they will send the fundraising books back with donor’s receipts. Or they will write down the missing money in the fundraising books to notice Solicitor. The committee members who live in the same area or have good relationship will gather each other’s fundraising books and send to Tzu Chi Foundation by a certain committee member for saving the postage and lightning the load of Tzu Chi Foundation. Therefore, the certain committee member’s home plays the role of Collecting Center, which is responsible for collecting Solicitor’s fundraising books, sending to Tzu Chi Foundation, receiving and distributing the fundraising books and receipts to Solicitor.
Breakdown: The committee member of Collecting Center takes more loads
It starts from a good intention of Collecting Center, but actually it also gives more loads on the certain committee member who is responsible for Collecting Center. The certain
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committee member cannot send fundraising books to Tzu Chi Foundation until all fundraising books are collected. In other words, if any Solicitor being late for submitting the fundraising books, the whole fundraising task will be delayed. Not only Collecting Center but also Tzu Chi Foundation will be affected. When the fundraising books and donor’s receipts arrive from Tzu Chi Foundation, the certain committee member has to spend much time classifying the stuff for Solicitor taking back. Finally, Solicitor has to take the consequences for the delay of next month’s fundraising task.
Breakdown: Sending fundraising books costs money and time
In the period of paperwork, the only way to exchange the fundraising information between Solicitor and Tzu Chi Foundation is sending the fundraising books via mail. But it takes few days to wait for; moreover, it costs time and postage to do the sending work.
Figure 4.3 The Consolidated Flow Model in the period of paperwork
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