Stricter assessment for social organizations in Shanghai

Shanghai will impose stricter assessments when rating social organizations and will step up support for social organization service centers, authorities announced on Saturday.

The Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau and Shanghai Administration Bureau of NGOs released a number of guidelines and standards on Saturday to regulate and promote the development of social organizations in the city.

Social organizations in Shanghai are rated into five levels from 1A to 5A.

The 2018 version of social organization evaluation index increases the total number of assessment items to 837 from 695 in the 2015 version. Time of establishment, scale and capacity, industry comment and other factors will all be given consideration in the rating conducted by third-party assessment agencies, according to the bureaus.

The rating will provide reference for government organs when they purchase services from social organizations. High rating social organizations will be put on a recommended list.

For the first time, a standard on social organization service centers was issued on Saturday, covering the establishment and services of these centers.

Shanghai has 240 such centers, which provide registration consultation, incubation, development assistance, resource bridging and training for social organizations.