We're so excited to finally share the photos of our Thanksgiving Charity Fundraiser, during which our interns raised over $1200 for Transparent Fish Fund causes. Thanks so much to Jacqueline Hoang, who took all of these beautiful photos. See the full album here, and don't forget to like our Facebook page after browsing the photos- your like means $1 more goes to funding congenital heart disease surgeries for impoverished children!

Our Little Red Scarf intern, Seanan Fong, who previously blogged about his experience visiting Gansu and even presented a poster at a recent Stanford conference, has now written an article for the Stanford Journal of Public Health. Read Seanan's story on pages 24-25 of this month's journal! We hope his moving story will be a great way to educate people on Congenital Heart Disease. 

The story couldn't have come at a better time. In honor of Congenital Heart Defect Awareness week, Transparent Fish Fund is donating a dollar for every new "like" on their Facebook page to the cause! If you haven't become a fan of the page yet, visit now, and help us spread the word!

As always, we're thrilled to see the projects our interns come up with. Here's a peek at their latest work, a video to raise awareness about congenital heart defects. Click above to watch!

We're so proud of our interns for continuously thinking of new ways to spread awareness of East Asian issues! This time, they decided to go to a local shopping center to speak to strangers about philanthropy. Read one intern's first-hand account of the experience below:


On January 2nd, the East Villagers interns gathered together at Stanford Shopping Center in order to spread awareness about the name and vision of Transparent Fish Fund. The game plan was to split into three groups, and then station each group at different sections of the mall. Each group carried fliers that contained information about the TFish Fund, and began stopping people respectfully in order to talk about the organization. We hoped to communicate our vision behind spreading a movement of philanthropy.

I was assigned to a group that consisted of three volunteers and myself, an EV intern. The experience was exciting, but at the same time, nerve-wrecking. We were all nervous at first, unsure how to approach people, and had to do a quick “rehearsals” before asking people walking by if we can borrow some of their time. Like any other mission, there are times of success and failure, and after a couple of rejections, people began to stop and listen to what we had to say. A few caring individuals were genuinely interested in our work and message and listened attentively, making our jobs as the communicator easier. After talking to six people, our group was stopped by the mall’s security official, stating that we could not continue because we needed to sign paperwork for permission.

Even though our mission had to conclude earlier than expected, the experience was still worthwhile. Together as a group, we sat in chairs in the center of the mall and debriefed the one hour that we had spent talking. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the experience, besides the challenges of rejection, and the early conclusion of the mission.
Now that I am more exposed and comfortable with communicating to the members of my community about the TFish Fund project, I cannot wait to spread the vision of TFish Fund through the many other projects coming forth this year!

Sophia Huang, EVSS Intern
Los Altos High School, California, Grade 11

Transparent Fish Fund's Facebook page now has over 150 likes! Don't forget to visit and "like" us to stay updated on nonprofit issues and news in East Asia!

Congratulations to the Transparent Fish team in Beijing, who were recently featured in China Weekly! The article includes background on what the team is doing in China and also an interview with Mr. Chao. As Mr. Chao points out, trust is a huge factor in getting NGOs to work with Transparent Fish Fund; on the other hand, it's an important factor for Westerners interested in donating to East Asian NGOs. As he points out:
“I live in Silicon Valley. Coming to the rural area of Lanzhou feels like crossing into a completely different world. In America, a hero could be like Steve Jobs or Mother Teresa. A good environment can have many heroes, and a diversity of values. It wouldn’t make anybody nervous. But who is the hero for people in China? I don’t know. Chinese people do not have a sense of security. Without a sense of security, how can you trust anybody, how could you be willing to help anybody?”


Read the rest of this quote and the fully translated article on the Transparent Fish Fund blog. Happy 2012 - from the Chao Foundation. It looks like we're already starting on an exciting year!

Happy Holidays from the Chao Foundation and Transparent Fish Fund! We had such an exciting year and are so thankful for everyone who has supported our programs, especially Little Red Scarf, in 2011. We also have a lot of changes coming in 2012, so stay tuned! In the meantime, please enjoy our holiday newsletter.

Our Transparent Fish team in Beijing has been hard at work making donor books so that donors like you know exactly how your money is spent after you've given it. Now, they're finally available online! These books include exciting content like:

• Project photo and story updates
• Quarterly expense breakdowns
• Quarterly transparency grade
• Quarterly revenue reporting
• YTD donor and donation information

We pledge that 100% of your contributions go directly to program expenses, and now we can prove it. These books are just one of the ways we fulfill out commitment to you to remain financially transparent.

Click here to see a sample of what a donor book looks like. For more books, please visit the Transparent Fish Fund website.

Congratulations to our interns, who made the post-Thanksgiving charity dinner a big success! We raised over $1200 total that night, more than enough to fully fund the remainder of our children featured on The School Fund's website, and even contribute extra funds toward special projects like those listed on our new website. We're so proud of our interns and can't wait to see the achievements that come from future projects!