Cheng Yen
The Tzu Chi Foundation was founded as a charity organization with Buddhist origins by the Buddhist nun Master Cheng Yen in 1966 in Hualien, Taiwan after Cheng Yen saw the humanitarian work of Christian missionaries in Taiwan in the post World War II period. She was inspired by her master and mentor, the late Venerable Master Yin Shun (印順導師, Yìn Shùn dǎoshī) a proponent of Humanistic Buddhism, who exhorted her to "work for Buddhism and for all sentient beings". The organization began with a motto of "instructing the rich and saving the poor" as a group of thirty housewives who saved fifty cents (US$0.02) every day and stored them in bamboo savings banks to donate to needy families.