The Rise of Tzu Chi

With ten million members worldwide, Tzu Chi has influence unmatched by most East Asian religious and non-profit organizations. The Buddhist foundation was established in Taiwan in 1966 by nun Cheng Yen and a group of laywomen. As with most religious movements, its success is often attributed to a charismatic leader, but The Rise of Tzu Chi offers a strikingly new analysis. Chengpang Lee asks a fundamental question: How can an organization centralize power while maintaining significant diversity? Drawing on historical documents and extensive international fieldwork, Lee traces the origins of Tzu Chi’s distinctive and apparently contradictory trajectory. Although authority is centralized, it is not authoritarian. Each unit of the organization is granted significant autonomy for spontaneous local action. The result has been an exceptional array of charitable initiatives: the world’s first crowdfunded hospital, a Taiwan-wide recycling system, Asia’s most effective bone marrow bank, a new university, and a global medical humanitarian team. Lee convincingly demonstrates that its unique capacity to synthesize religious and lay leadership has allowed Tzu Chi to continuously integrate heterogeneous elements and mobilize powerful social classes to achieve charitable ends. The Rise of Tzu Chi shows us a dynamic Asian religious movement with diversity at the root of its global success.