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Cross the river by feeling the stones: How did nonlocal grassroots nonprofits overcome administrative barriers to provide quick responses to COVID‐19?

Abstract This field report explores how nonlocal grassroots organizations provided effective and quick responses during the initial stage of the COVID‐19 outbreak in Wuhan and surrounding regions. Despite the lack of resources and local connections, they were able to overcome administrative failures and provide quick responses to the crisis. Built on a researcher‐practitioner collaborative action research project, three strategies facilitating grassroots organizations' quick and effective responses are analyzed and discussed: putting pandemic relief as the strategic priority of their organizations, leveraging social media platforms to scale up existing organizational networks and foster cross‐sector collaboration, and effective online trust‐building. As COVID‐19 unprecedently pushes nonprofits to transform how they deliver services and engage stakeholders, these findings have important policy and theoretical implications for an expanded view of how nonprofits may engage in disaster responses and how public and private funders may shift their funding strategies to cultivate such capacities of grassroots nonprofits.


| INTRODUCTION
The role of nonprofit and community-based organizations in disaster relief has been celebrated by public administration and nonprofit scholars for decades (Cheng et al., 2020;Nolte & Boenigk, 2013;Rotolo & Berg, 2011). However, relatively little attention has been paid to how nonprofits can participate in disaster relief and community building while they cannot provide services and relief on site.
Moreover, the existing literature often assumes that these efforts are often driven by resourceful, well-connected, and professional organizations (Eikenberry et al., 2007;Simo & Bies, 2007). Based on a unique action research program jointly initiated and implemented by scholars and practitioners, we challenge these assumptions and provide a synthesis of the conditions that facilitated these grassroots organizations' quick and effective responses during the initial stage of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan and surrounding regions. We also reflect on how these emergent patterns of nonprofit responses to the pandemic may shed light on the changing (or not) relationship between the government and nonprofits in China and beyond (Jing & Hu, 2017).
The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown of Wuhan on January 23, 2020 were an unprecedented crisis that neither the government nor the society had ever encountered before. COVID-19 patients flocked to hospitals and soon realized that there were no more available beds. Essential community services were cut off, leaving vulnerable populations-elderly, pregnant women, people with chronic diseases-desperately seeking social support. The shortage of medical supplies was so serious that medical workers had to bypass the government and sent out individual pleas for donations.
The government's responses to  in the first few weeks were inadequate. The emergency plan developed by the government to deal with normal disasters was insufficient for this sweeping crisis.
The administrative failure in responding to the pandemic intensified panic and precipitated the dysfunction of the social system. Instead of offsetting government failure as suggested by the classic three failure theory (Steinberg, 2006), nonprofits encountered more malfunctions and barriers due to the administrative breakdown. On January 26, the Bureau of Civil Affairs made a policy that only five designated government-organized nongovernmental organizations (GONGOs) were allowed to accept donations and volunteers to Wuhan. 1 Yet these GONGOs were completely under administrative control and did not take action proactively. Despite occupying enormous resources, dependence on government and red tape deterred GONGOs' responses to the crisis as governments themselves were not clear about the proper solution. 2 Meanwhile, numerous donors and nonprofits were eager to support the frontline workers yet had no channel to contribute except through the five designated GONGOs. Zhu (2020) described the simultaneous failure of multiple sectors as the "complete societal failure." In this context of complete societal failure during the initial stage of pandemic relief in Wuhan, a group of nonlocal grassroots organizations, which did not have any professional experiences in disaster relief nor sufficient resources and local networks when joining the relief, surprisingly emerged and achieved major success in building effective collaborative networks and delivering aids to Wuhan and surrounding regions. Why can these organizations effectively deliver aids while some professional and resourceful nonprofit organizations struggled to provide quick responses? To answer this question, we present a brief report from the field based on in-depth reflections by grassroots nonprofit leaders who were involved at the early stage of COVID-19 responses in Wuhan.

| DATA AND METHODS
To understand how these nonlocal grassroots organizations quickly responded to COVID-19, we collaborated with the Ginkgo Foundation in China to carry out a practitioner-researcher collaborative action research project. The Ginkgo Foundation was among the first foundations in China to offer flexible funding support to the leaders of grassroots organizations 3 (knows as the Ginkgo fellows, the Chinese version of Ashoka fellows) to engage in the initial responses to COVID-19 in Wuhan and nearby regions. This action research project is driven by practitioners and aims at helping Ginkgo fellows reflect and document their own experiences in responding to this crisis.
For this field report, we apply a no-variance design combined with within case analysis, which is suitable for exploring common themes across cases and identifying mechanisms leading to a certain outcome (Collier et al., 2004;Ragin, 2004). This methodology is particularly useful for phenomena that are unique and recent (e.g., the COVID-19 crisis). It involves detailed write-up of each case and the intentional search and conceptualization of cross-case patterns (Eisenhardt, 1989). Following this case study methodology, we selected nonlocal grassroots nonprofits organizations that successfully provided key supplies or services during the initial stage of pandemic relief to Wuhan and surrounding regions on time ( Table 1 shows the details of their achievements). Since our research focuses on the responses of nonlocal grassroots organizations, the organizations selected were relatively small (with less than 30 staff members), established by ordinary people and not predominantly reliant on government funding or donations from wealthy individuals. They were not disaster relief organizations but were professional nonprofit organizations in areas such as education, youth development, and so on.
Seven hundred and twenty-two pages of interviews, practitioners' self-reflections, and media coverages were used for this research, totaling 587,307 words. The first and second authors independently coded the documents and cross-referenced the main themes about the conditions enabling quick responses to COVID-19. To better triangulate our findings, we sent the Chinese version of this report to the leaders of the eight grassroots organizations, funders for the grassroots relief action, a professional disaster relief expert, and two researchers involved in the action research project for informant feedback (Schwartz-Shea, 2006). After receiving their feedbacks, we had five interviews with them to ensure the accuracy of the facts and seek additional inputs to the interpretation of the findings. The interviews are numbered.

| STRATEGIES FACILITATING QUICK RESPONSES TO COVID-19
We identified three strategies facilitating the success of developing quick responses to the crisis: putting pandemic relief as the strategic priority of their organizations, leveraging social media platforms to scale up existing organizational networks and foster cross-sector collaboration, and effective online trust-building. Their success was not planned but came from continuous adaptation to changing environment and problem-solving, as a Chinese proverb rightly put, "cross the river by feeling the stones." The following sections discuss each condition in detail.
1 Bureau of Civil Affairs, Announcement No.476. 2 First author's personal communication with a fund manager at a local Charity Federation on February 7, 2020. The interviewee reported that the government asked charities "not to compete with the government and stop bidding for medical supplies." The fund manager then turned to the international market to buy masks and protective suits, yet GONGOs' strict financial rules made purchasing and delivering products international extremely difficult, and the complicated administrative procedure delayed the action of the relief, "the medical workers desperately needed masks and protective suits, but the people in charge had to consider compliance because they could not bear the risk. I think it is problematic to treat charities as government agencies." A news report about the Red Cross (retrieved from https://opinion.caixin.com/2020-02-02/101510708.html), which is affiliated with the government, echoes the viewpoint and observation of the interviewee. The distribution of donations to the Red Cross was not determined by the Red Cross but the government. 3 Grassroots organizations refer to independent nonprofits that were founded by ordinary people who are not political or business elites and with relatively small scale (less than 30 full-time staff).

| Putting pandemic relief as the strategic priority of their organizations
When the government announced Wuhan outbreak, most nonprofit leaders and staff stayed at home with their families to celebrate the biggest festival of the year-the Spring Festival. For most nonprofit leaders, it was not an easy decision to call their staff and devote all the efforts to pandemic relief, which does not fit their mission and expertise.
Nevertheless, with the increased severity of the pandemic, they felt compelled to join the relief. Two nonprofit leaders expressed they could no longer stand being indifferent bystanders, watching the tragedy in Wuhan. Despite having no clear plan, they determined to follow inner callings and found out their roles through engagement: In the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake, I planned to donate disaster supply kits and was told that only the Red Cross could accept our donations. We delivered the For the other six grassroots organizations, they were pushed by institutional partners and volunteers to engage-they received requests from collaborating hospitals regarding the shortage of medical supplies or were asked by volunteers to support their pandemic relief initiatives. Some organizations immediately decided to put aside other work and join the relief, "it is wartime…in the pandemic, there is only one type of charity, that is pandemic relief organization" (Case 6, Participant 1). Other leaders had hesitations, "we are a foundation focusing on education. Should we engage? Does it fit our mission?" While as the severity of the pandemic upgraded, they no longer hesitated It was such a severe and emergent situation. Whether being mission-related should not be a concern at this moment. More importantly, we have over a thousand volunteers in Hubei Province. The schools we supported were at the center of the pandemic. We needed to take care of our volunteers and their communities.
We would try to do as much as we can (Case 8,

| Effective trust-building on online platforms
The emergency of the pandemic catalyzed collaboration, yet most collaborators and volunteers had never worked closely before, and it was challenging to maintain trustworthy information exchanges across collaborators in online platforms. What made rapid formation and effective operation of networks possible was trustbuilding.
The eight grassroots organizations all dedicated to philanthropy for years, earning reputation and respect from the government, GONGOs, stakeholders, and peers. The long-established trust from stakeholders enhances the efficiency of exchanges in the collaborative networks.
In the network, we trust each other, we have shared values. Although there was a lot of fake information online, no one ever doubted the information in our network. Our shared values sustain trust (Case 4, Participant 1).
Nonetheless, the initial trust was not enough. Most collaborators came together because of the pandemic and did not have close interactions before. There were tensions due to miscommunication, frustration in completing tasks, and different work habits. Besides, online communication magnified tensions and misunderstandings.
The absence of face-to-face dialogues in most interactions made it harder to sense others' feelings. To retain trust among collaborators, grassroots organizations shared three key lessons.
The first is transparency. The advantage of online engagement was that collaborators could know how the initiatives progressed and whether the supplies were successfully delivered immediately. Even when the initiative encountered difficulties, donors and volunteers could understand and proceed as long as the communications were transparent.
Second, it was essential to give collaborators credits. "People will be angry if their value is not seen by others" (Case 2, Participant 1),

| CHALLENGES IN THE PANDEMIC RELIEF
In previous sessions, we discussed three strategies facilitating the success of grassroots organizations. Nevertheless, there were challenges when applying each strategy for those grassroot nonprofits.
WANG AND CHENG -95 The severity of the pandemic and the sense of responsibilities pushed nonprofit leaders to shift the priority of their organizations to pandemic relief. Yet this decision did not necessarily yield good outcomes. Some organizations earned reputations, recruited more volunteers, and enhanced the solidarity of their team during the pandemic relief, yet others suffered from extra administrative and auditing burden. A nonprofit generously shared its public fundraising platform for other grassroots nonprofits without public fundraising qualifications to raise funds was overwhelmed by the reporting and auditing requirements afterwards. In the pandemic, to ensure rapid reactions and effective delivery of goods and services, the financial procedure had to be simplified. Yet the government auditing requirement did not take this situation into account, and enormous efforts and staff time were put into meeting the auditing requirements, creating frustration for the organization with limited administrative budgets.
Since the nonprofits are not professional disaster relief organi- In online organizing and trust-building, most grassroots organi- Even though all organizations in the sample survived the internal conflicts and improved the structures and procedures of organizing, how to enhance the efficiency of coordination and settle ethical disputes in online platform deserve more attention from practitioners and scholars.

| CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
Our research presents three strategies that facilitated successful pandemic relief action-shifting organizations' priority to pandemic relief, leveraging networks and cross-section collaboration through social media, and online trust-building. As discussed in the findings, Our interviewees reported they heard of the failures of other grassroots action, including delivering wrong products to wrong places, the medical supplies coming too late and no longer needed, and the suspension of relief actions due to internal conflicts and disputes.
force us to reconsider the existing narratives and norms of nonprofit organizations. Here we offer three broad observations about the implications of our findings on nonprofits' engagement in disaster relief and public and nonprofit administration literature in general.
First, the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan and its resulting administrative failures across sectors challenge the assumption that different sectors will automatically fill in the gaps of services due to the failures of other sectors during a crisis (Steinberg, 2006 structures. Here we do not argue that large organizations are not able to adapt. In fact, after the first few weeks' chaos, governments and GONGOs worked out a comprehensive plan and achieved major success in fighting against the pandemic. Yet our observations do echo the theory that small grassroots organizations are less to structural inertia. As a funder of the pandemic relief action indicated, "the grassroots action makes me feel we need government and large disaster relief organizations, but at the same time, small grassroots organizations and individual helping are also separately needed. Just like a jungle, each ecological niche has its unique value. When encountering a catastrophe, artificial forests with low species richness might be destroyed, but the resilience and vibrancy of a jungle was much stronger" (Interview 2).
Finally, the pandemic relief of grassroots organizations represents a form of spontaneous volunteering (Simsa et al., 2019). As the COVID-19 moved our social interactions online, the strategies identified in our research may be applied to other disaster relief action online. Our findings offer researchers and practitioners an opportunity to reimagine how cross-sector collaboration and stakeholder engagement could be conducted. These grassroots nonprofit leaders masterfully leveraged their networks and impacts through online platforms and quickly built trust with various stakeholders during COVID-19. As internet-based strategies have transformed how nonprofits typically deliver services and communicate with stakeholders (Saxton & Guo, 2012), this field report sheds light on how these platforms help nonprofits do things they can never imagine before: responding to a global crisis in their home office.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The collection of the data used in this study was funded and supported by the Ginkgo Foundation. We deeply appreciate the action research team, the staff, volunteers, and interns at the Gingko Foundation who played key roles in conducting the interviews, provided valuable feedbacks to our ideas, and wholeheartedly supported our research. More than the usual thanks go to the grassroots nonprofit leaders participating in this researchthey are the true heroes in this unprecedented crisis. We also wish to thank Dr. Jiangang Zhu and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this article.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
Data subject to third party restrictions.