Founded by The Asia Foundation to promote and inspire philanthropy to Asia

Your Ideas, Asia’s Future

Leith Robotham

Director of Philanthropy

 China’s Philanthropic Sector- History- Challenges- Best Practices for Engagement

Brief Background on China’s Philanthropy Sector

Timeline:

1949 – People’s Republic of China proclaimed

1981 -The first Gov’t Organized NGO (GONGO)

1994 -The first Nonprofit Organization (NPO)

2011 – 447,000 registered NPO’s

2011 – The first privately-funded public foundation

Brief Background on China’s Philanthropy Sector

Key Sector Advancements

• 2004: Regulation on Foundation Administration

• Shanghai NPO incubation and registration effort

• Hunan Province, Shanghai and Guangdong Province pilot favorable legislation on NPO regulation

• Emergence of sense of social responsibility

• The increasing social issues: migrants, youth, seniors, environment protection, public health, disaster relief…

The Sector Today

• Transparency – China Foundation Center

• Platform – China Private Philanthropy Forum

• NPO capacity building up

• Volunteerism

Challenges

• New / emerging sector … still in start-up phase

• Legal / policy framework obstacles are not expected to be resolved in the near future

• International donation hurdles

• Significant gap between sector talent demand and supply

Notes / Best Practices When Engaging NPO’s

Best Practices:

• Listen to and learn from local employee’s

• Communicate and collaborate with local NPOs

• Don’t forget to help build capacity, not just programs

Notes:

• Expect some public announcement / recognition opportunity which will include a governmental representative

• Expect a dynamic legal environment in the coming years

• Expect the answer to “why should this project be funded” to be: “for a better China” (or similar)

Founded by The Asia Foundation to promote and inspire philanthropy to Asia

Thank you!

Your Ideas, Asia’s Future

Leith Robotham

415-322-8619

lrobotham@give2asia.org

www.give2asia.org