ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the practices of charity donations by business entrepreneurs and their enterprises, in order to elucidate the possible effects of their growing participation in the philanthropic sector. The corporatist philanthropic model has developed at different speeds and in different ways in the two cities of Lanzhou and Zhongshan, based on the particularities of their economic and structural transformation. The chapter provides insight into the government–enterprise relationship effects on enterprise charitable donations and on the implications for the non-government organization sector that depends on those donations. The increased diversification of the goals of private charitable foundations can be seen as an attempt by local economic elites to build symbolic and moral capital within their immediate communities. The interviews with enterprise managers and owners analyses are part of a larger project investigating the social basis of power of local economic elites in China.
