As I have mentioned before, the Shikinen Sengū (式年遷宮) at Isë Jingū (伊勢神宮) is funded entirely from private sources. The total budget this time is ¥57.7 billion, or in US terms about the price of a tank of gas $356 million at the moment. Jingū has about ¥38.7 billion on hand or expected over the next seven years, and so it needs to raise around ¥19 billion.
To coordinate it, a non-profit organisation (NPO) has been set up, the Isë Jingū Shikinen Sengū Hōsankai. “Hōsankai” means, roughly, “Money-Offering Group”, so the name is simply descriptive of its function. This was officially recognised by the government as having been founded on April 27th, the day they submitted the paperwork, and on May 25th it held the first formal meeting of its management board. This did all the legally necessary things to finish the process of establishing the NPO, and talked about the next steps. This meeting was reported in the June 8th issue of Jinja Shinpō, and some further details were given in an article about meetings at Jingū in the June 22nd issue.
The plan is to convert this NPO into a public benefit NPO, which I think comes with tax breaks by itself, and then apply for designated donation status, which has further tax benefits, in particular for donors. The current outlook is that the designation will happen next year, and that they will be able to start gathering donations from 2028, giving them five years before the end of the Shikinen Sengū. As in the past, the central committee will be primarily responsible for gathering large donations from large corporations, and there will be regional committees responsible for gathering small donations from individuals and smaller companies. Last time, the split was that the regional committees together were expected to gather about twice as much as the central committee.
However, the changes to tax and NPO law mean that things will not work quite the same as last time, and the differences are being carefully explained. It looks as though two are important.
First, because all the donations have to go through the designated NPO, it seems that the regional committees will not be incorporated this time. They will have no legal status, and will just be acting on behalf of the central committee. I get the impression that everyone is still figuring out exactly how that will work.
Second, the rules for designated donations are quite strict. You have to specify both what they are for, and the amount you want to gather. Once you have gathered that amount, you have to stop collecting.
Specifying the purpose is not a problem. All this money will be used for building the sanctuaries and creating the new sacred treasures. All miscellaneous expenses will be paid from Jingū’s own funds.
The limit on collection is potentially an issue. The Jingū meeting mentioned the need to spread things out so that the money was collected over as long a period as possible, up to the ceremony itself, so that the fundraising could also be used to raise awareness of and interest in the ritual.
I expect this all to go smoothly in the end, but I get the impression that there is a lot of work happening behind the scenes to get all the legal ducks in a row.