With ten million members worldwide, Tzu Chi has influence unmatched by most East Asian religious and non-profit organizations. The Buddhist foundation was established in Taiwan in 1966 by nun Cheng Yen and a group of laywomen. As with most religious movements, its success is often attributed to a charismatic leader, but The Rise of Tzu Chi offers a strikingly new analysis.

Chengpang Lee traces Tzu Chi’s apparently contradictory trajectory. Although authority is centralized, it is not authoritarian. Each unit has significant autonomy, resulting in an exceptional array of charitable initiatives: the world’s first crowdfunded hospital, a Taiwan-wide recycling system, Asia’s most effective bone marrow bank, a new university, and a global medical humanitarian team.

Lee convincingly demonstrates that its unique capacity to synthesize religious and lay leadership has allowed Tzu Chi to continuously integrate heterogeneous elements. The Rise of Tzu Chi shows us a dynamic Asian religious movement with diversity at the root of its success.

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Chengpang Lee is an assistant professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Chinese public policy at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and serves on the boards of several associations focused on public health, East Asian geopolitics, and knowledge production.