The Development Management of Community Welfare Fund : Sanpatong District Chiang Mai Province

Thananan Kanyaraj

Abstract

This purposes of this research were (1) to study the management process of community welfare fund (2) to present the form of community welfare fund management (3) to provide guidelines for the development of sustainable community welfare fund management in San Pa Tong, Chiang Mai. The research was a qualitative research. The instruments of this study included in-depth interview along with the participant observation and focus group. The scopeof this study covered 3 types of community welfare funds in San Pa Tong, such as, (1) Funds with the membership of more than 1,000 people, (2) Funds with the working capital of more than 1 million baht and (3) Funds that have operated for at least 3 years. The data analysis was done using descriptive analysis along with induction from inte rviews and documentary analysis. The study will be communicated by descriptive in the form of an essay. 

Research finding
Point 1 : The community welfare funds were the projects which developed the Elder Care project of the Ministry of Social Care and Human Security at the time and became the community welfare funds. The fund collected savings for 1 baht per day or 30 baht per month per person. The fund used the management regulations from the ministry. The fund committee held 2 years regarding term of position.The budget allocation of the fund is 80:20. Eighty percent went to management fee. While 20 percent was reserved as capital.
Point 2 : This study found that the form that the community welfare fund usedwas in the form of community welfare partners through partly budgeting support from the government and partly collected from members. The welfare was allocated for the fund’s members in 4 main types including birth, education, illness and death.
Point 3 : There were government departments that supported the community welfare fund, such as, the Department of Social Development and Human Security, provincially, and an agency such as the Community  Organizations Development Institute (CODI.). These supports were delivered in form of knowledge, management and budget. Another department was a local government who support annual budget to the fund. The  community welfare fund has to report their performance to these departments from time to time.
The researcher suggested that the community welfare fund should be able to ; integrate with social capital and other financial capitals to take part in enhancing the community welfare; develop plans in all dimensions  of fund management; strengthen the community welfare fund to become the learning center of community in the terms of savings and social welfare; integrate knowledge and cooperation with other community welfare funds as well as personnel exchange: strengthen the new generation of human  resources to manage the fund operation and to establish a standardized information system.