Members of a nonprofit organization learn how to use a vehicle designed to provide transportation for disabled people.

Her tasks include organizing special vehicles, planning a driver-training program and raising funds to cover such activities.

"The attraction of working for NPOs is that you can directly serve the disabled," the 28-year-old Nishii said.

Working for nonprofit groups is emerging as an alternative career opportunity for younger job seekers, as an increasing number of them are becoming disillusioned with conventional work values and are starting to look at NPOs as providers of new types of public services.

From her previous experience working at a kidney patients' organization for six years, Nishii said she felt that pressuring the cash-strapped central and local governments to improve services for the disabled has its limitations.

In addition, she believes private, profit-oriented companies cannot adequately serve the poor.

Recognizing the importance of nonprofit organizations, the government introduced the NPO Law, under which groups in certain fields are certified and given corporate status to make it easier for them to carry out such activities as opening bank accounts and renting office space.

Since the law took effect in December 1998, 10,664 NPOs have been certified, according to the Cabinet Office.

On Thursday, the activities for which NPOs can receive government certification under the law were expanded to 17 fields from the initial 12, ranging from medical and welfare services to international cooperation and revitalizing local-level economies.

According to Ichiro Tsukamoto, a professor of business administration at Meiji University, the emergence of NPOs has coincided with the changing perception toward work by a younger generation that has grown up in a relatively affluent society and has become interested in socially meaningful careers.

"Students have begun thinking that a company is not the only place to do something worthwhile," Tsukamoto said. "And NPOs have surfaced as an alternative."

The raft of corporate failures amid Japan's prolonged economic slump, accounting scandals such as the one that shattered Enron Corp. of the U.S. and the food-mislabeling frauds that brought down Snow Brand Foods Co. and other Japanese companies, have also prompted students to think twice about working for profit-oriented firms, he said.

Believing that the role of NPOs in Japanese society will increase, Meiji University last spring set up in its business department what it touts as the country's first NPO management course.

The course is proving popular -- for the school year starting in April, it attracted 951 applicants, a 41 percent jump from the 673 the previous year. Some 180 students are currently taking the course.

"I want to engage in community-building that is different from the (conventional) city-planning by municipal governments," which merely involves land transactions and zoning, said Tatsuro Maruyama, 19, who is taking the course and hopes to work for an NPO.

NPOs can help people build their community by acting as an intermediary for various parties, including residents, companies and local governments, in the city-planning process, he said.

For their part, the fledgling NPOs welcome the attention, as their activities can benefit from recruiting younger and talented people. But they face a major obstacle -- a shortage of funds.

With her new job, Nishii's monthly salary was halved to 100,000 yen. Although this is to rise after six months, it still will not bring her paycheck back to what she previously earned.

"The core of the problem is NPOs' financial strength," said Naoki Tanaka, general manager at the Tokyo-based Support Center for NPO Program Development, itself an NPO.

If nonprofit bodies want to attract talented people, they at least have to pay salaries that enable employees to make a living, he said.

The annual salary for most full-time NPO workers ranges from 2 million yen to 2.5 million yen, according to a survey released by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in April 2002. Conversely, the average annual salary in 2001 for a 25-year-old male corporate worker was 3.84 million yen before taxes, says the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren).

And even with their low salaries, NPOs still rely heavily on part-time workers, who are paid less, and volunteers.

"It's a chicken-and-egg situation," Meiji University's Tsukamoto said.

While some students want to work for NPOs, they have to work for companies and the central or local governments if they want to make a living. But if NPOs want to develop and become financially self-sustaining so they can pay higher wages, they need more and better people, he said.

Perhaps reflecting the reality, a recent survey of 122 Meiji students taking the NPO management course found only 7.8 percent want to work for NPOs, according to Tsukamoto.

Meanwhile, about 70 percent of participants of seminars organized by Tanaka's NPO center are in their 50s and 60s -- people who already have financial resources to fall back on, center officials said.

Nevertheless, the government hopes NPOs will help stimulate the economy and create jobs amid the chronically high unemployment rate.

METI estimated there were 176,000 workers at Japanese NPOs in 2000, including 97,000 part-timers. This figure could increase to 418,000 by 2010, according to the ministry.

If properly managed, NPOs have great potential and can be a viable and handy tool for people who want to engage in business that is socially meaningful, Tsukamoto said, noting that it is simpler to set up an NPO than a company.

But both NPOs and the public sector need to change their way of thinking if such groups are to escape from the financial hardship that keeps them from securing sufficient human resources, experts say.

Even though NPOs can become financially independent by forming partnerships with the public sector in such ways as offering public services and taking part in policy planning, the public sector still lacks awareness of such roles, they say.

"The lack of awareness (of NPOs) is observed particularly at the level of municipalities," Tsukamoto said. "Many of them view NPOs merely as a way to reduce the cost (of public services)."

On the other hand, those who work for NPOs often have a negative image about making money, even though the groups are legally allowed to generate profits and even reinvest profits into their activities, including personnel expenses, he said.

"(Those who work at NPOs) should receive a just reward," Meiji student Maruyama said. "But if they think their salary should be small because of their noble ambitions, this will not help NPOs to develop."

The Japan Times: May 3, 2003
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