If enterprises donate money, they cannot accept it as a donation for philanthropy, which means they still have to pay five percent sales tax.

Wu Yiqun, deputy director of the Think Tank Research Center for Health Development, has always been worried about who would be a successor for her and the director when they, both in their 60s, retire.

As an NGO mainly focusing on tobacco control, as well as other public health issues, Think Tank does not have much difficulty in getting money, but that's only in terms of projects, for example, they started a "smoke free" project in 17 Chinese cities with Emory University in 2009, which has been funded with some 10 million U.S. dollars by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

But Think Tank cannot offer good payments. Neither does it have quota for household registration in Beijing. In other words, it will lose its lure to job applicants outside Beijing.p "What we can only ensure our young employees is that they can learn a lot in communications, activity organizing and other aspects," Wu said.

And sometimes, even if they have money, it's still difficult for the NGOs to provide high salaries to their employees due to pressure from the public.

Kung-Fu star Jet Li's One Foundation initiated "Philanthropy Awards" selections in 2008.

"Credibility, professionalism, execution and sustainability" are listed as the award standards, and experts, journalists, consultants, legal and financial professionals are invited to vote.

They chose no more than 10 qualified NGOs and One Foundation gave them 1 million yuan each to support their development. Altogether, 20 domestic grassroots NGOs have been awarded 1 million yuan in the past three years.

However, Li said after the year's awards ceremony in 2008, One Foundation adopted strict requirements on the spending of money -- more than 85 percent of the money should be spent on projects.

He says this is because of pressure from the public.