To create our databases and visualizations, The China NGO Project uses the data posted by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) on its Foreign NGO Management Office website. It is important to know, however, that some older data entries posted by the MPS have changed over time, likely reflecting corrections the MPS made to these entries. The “field of work” entries for several temporary activities, for instance, changed after their initial posting, sometimes including more information, and sometimes just showing alterations in their punctuation.
In addition to downloading new data entries on a regular basis, The China NGO Project also periodically reconciles our data set with that on the MPS website, changing old entries to reflect the newest information provided by the MPS. That means that on some occasions, our data visualizations will show small changes in the numbers for “old” data, such as changes to the start date of a temporary activity from early in the year, for example.
If any readers have experienced errors in their registration or filing information as posted by the MPS, particularly if they have successfully been corrected, we would be interested to know more about it. We also encourage readers to reach out if they find errors in our translations or coding of their organizations’ information.