In the past, registered foundations and associations were also required to put in their official objectives that they would not be involved in politics. Although the government can use this statement to punish NGOs acting against it, it never did so. The requirement was removed in 1993 allowing foundations to do activities to support democracy and Constitutional Monarchy system and associations to be set up to support political parties.
NPOs wishing to become a juristic entity are required to apply for permission to officially establish and register with concerned government agencies. The biggest group of these NPOs are in the categories of "foundation" and "association" of which their establishment is with the Office of National Culture Commission (ONCC).
It must be understood that "foundations" in Thailand may not be grant-making organizations as very much the case in the U.S.A. They can be implementing NPOs with a wide range of activities and working for all groups of beneficiaries.
The objectives of most Thai foundations and associations, however, are for welfare or to provide assistance to individual persons or specific groups in society. Among them, there is a small number of NPOs which may or may not have the word "foundation" attached to their title but are established to provide some kinds of support to specific individuals/groups and to development projects and/or other CSOs. These NPOs are now called "Civil Society Resource Organizations" or CSROs. The origin of this specific group of NPOs can be traced back to 1960 when the first two of them, the National Council of Women of Thailand and the National Council of Social Welfare, were registered and started operation. There are now various models of CSROs in order to fulfil diverse needs of many types of CSOs.8
An implication of being called "NGOs" together with their being free from government control make them being considered antagonistic to many government agencies/officials at times. The mass media also often portray NGOs as anti-government persons/agencies. Marxists or strands of self-called revolutionists, on the other hand, see NGOs as anti-revolutionary, not much better than capitalist state apparatus. Research institutes consider them as having liberal ideological stand.
2.2 History and Roles of NPOs in Thailand
Some may want to trace development of NPOs in Thailand back 700 years9 to the time that even the nation state as it is now did not exist. Counting "secret societies" of Chinese migrants that operated as gangs robbing people and demanding ransom from villagers to be NPOs (Nisada, 2000) is questionable because they did not act for public interest, even though they had the above-mentioned characteristics and did provide assistance and protection to certain groups of people10. Legitimate Chinese mutual assistance/welfare associations and dialect group associations related or unrelated to specific clans, some of which were reorganized from the suppressed Chinese secret societies after 1910, however, could be counted as NPOs and are now well known in the country, such as the Hakka Association and Teochiu Association.
Welfare provision and relief work have been traditional role of NPOs in Thailand like in other countries. The first NPO as generally accepted by Thai NPOs themselves is the Thai Red Cross (Sapa Unalorn Daeng), established more than 100 years ago by the Queen of King Chulalongkorn to help soldiers wounded in war. At about the same time, an orphan home was opened by another member of the royal family in 1890. Buddhist societies formed to provide funeral expenses and hold religious services on the death of a member were formed in the early 1900s. A number of trade associations were also established in that period. The Women City Club and Women's Cultural Club was formed in 1932 and 1943 respectively. The fact that the RTG pushed for establishment of the National Council of Social Welfare in Thailand in 1959 to coordinate NPOs indicates that until that time only this broad type of NPOs existed.
Despite doing the kind of work that is generally non-political and supportive to the government, growth and well being of welfare and relief NPOs is also up and down, subject to political situation of the country.
