Last November, when a new leadership team stepped forward in Beijing, they confronted a very different set of challenges than their predecessors had faced. Among the most urgent of these is the challenge of providing adequate basic social services for all of China’s 1.3 billion people, many of whom remain relatively disadvantaged, even as the country’s wealth continues to increase dramatically.

While the Chinese government remains a formidable actor in the country’s social sector, the practical limitations of government service provision have also taken hold. Photo/flickr user John Williams – IDEAS Project

A 2011 survey conducted by China’s Southwestern University of Finance and Economics found that China’s wealthiest 10 percent of households control as much as 56 percent of the country’s disposable income, making China’s wealth distribution more unequal than some of the least developed nations in Africa. Those at the bottom of the spectrum suffer from poor access to health care and education, and live without the social security nets needed to remain upwardly mobile.

While the Chinese government remains a formidable actor in the country’s social sector, the practical limitations of government service provision have also taken hold. China’s new leaders are searching for alternative solutions, and are increasingly turning to third-party actors to support them in providing critical services for everything from school nutrition programs to HIV/AIDS patient support.

Within this environment, the charitable sector has emerged as a new and important partner for supporting China’s most vulnerable populations. Public recognition of nonprofits was widely bolstered by their unprecedented and highly visible role in the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake disaster relief and reconstruction efforts. Since then, the government has not only begun to publically support the growth of the charitable sector, but is increasingly tapping charitable organizations to provide much-needed services, such as care for the elderly. The Beijing municipal government alone has increased its budget for nonprofit-delivered services from just $640,000 in 2006 to $12.8 million in 2011.

Individuals are also turning to nonprofits and philanthropic giving as a way to contribute to their communities. As internet and social networking sites such as Sina Weibo, China’s equivalent to Twitter, have brought individual and local issues instantly to a national audience, millions have been spurred to donate or volunteer. According to national statistics, in just five years, personal donations have risen from $1.6 billion in 2005 to $8.5 billion in 2011. High net worth individuals – the Bill Gates and Warren Buffetts of China – are also jumping on the bandwagon by establishing large private foundations to carry out their philanthropic visions. In 2012, 259 new private foundations were registered, creating a total of 2,936 foundations now in existence across China, up from just a few hundred prior to 2005.

The potential for the charitable sector to assist in alleviating some of China’s greatest challenges, including equitable development, is enormous; however, the rapid pace of its expansion has caused stumbles along the way. Scandals have wracked the sector, as organizations struggle with inexperienced staff, competing standards, and underdeveloped regulations. In 2013, we will likely see charitable organizations continue to become more productive and efficient, aided in part by increased collaboration with international partners and the adoption of some international nonprofit standards in governance and transparency. Hong Kong, with its vibrant charity sector, offers many tangible best practices.

Toward this end, The Asia Foundation is launching the Mainland-Hong Kong Charity Platform later this month to allow key government and private sector stakeholders to strengthen the charitable sector through mutual learning via joint research, discussion, and cooperative projects. Such investments will be necessary over the long run, and despite inevitable challenges, the growth and development of China’s charitable sector will remain one of the most exciting trends in the coming years, as Chinese citizens are empowered to take on growing roles in providing vital public services and protecting poor and marginalized populations.

Emily Weaver is a program advisor for The Asia Foundation in China. She can be reached at eweaver@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

When I first met Pandju Merali at his home in Seal Beach, California, in 2010, he told me a story about his life, which is recorded in his memoir, From Africa 2 America. Mr. Merali talked about what it was like growing up as a child of Indian descent in the Congo in the early 1900s. When he turned six, his father and mother tried to enroll him into one of the two schools in Kalemie. But because he was neither white nor black, he was not allowed to attend, and thus had no formal education. Later, when he started his business career he hired women in the Congo to cut wood.  The women had not had the chance to gain an education, and he recognized that they had few options to improve their own and their family’s lives. These two experiences – himself being denied access to education and observing how few opportunities women had due to lack of education – became a driving force behind his philanthropy, which he dedicated  to giving girls from low-income families in developing countries the chance to get an education and open up a path to a brighter future.

Mr. Merali became a very successful businessman, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, and founded the Shirin Pandju Merali Foundation in honor of his late wife, Shirin, to provide scholarships to young women in the developing world. Since 2010, The Asia Foundation has partnered with the Shirin Pandju Merali Foundation to provide young women from low-income backgrounds with scholarships to pursue university degrees in hard and social sciences and technology – fields where women are severely underrepresented. Since the program began, it has grown to now support hundreds of young women in Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

With sincere gratitude, The Asia Foundation remembers Pandju Merali, whose legacy will live on in the young women whose lives are being transformed by his generosity, with positive repercussions for their children and families for generations to come.  In this slideshow, we share some of the stories of incredible young women who, thanks to scholarships from the Shirin Pandju Merali Foundation, are attending leading universities across Asia, and studying to become the next generation’s scientists, engineers, innovators, teachers, and more.

Carol Yost is the director of The Asia Foundation’s Women’s Empowerment Programs in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at cyost@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

Last month, local headlines in Vietnam announced the government’s much-welcomed decision to earmark an additional $119 million (VND2.5 trillion) to assist with loans to low-income university students in the upcoming academic year. This is certainly good news, because despite Vietnam’s strong economic growth and impressive achievements in many development areas, including literacy, serious challenges and inequalities in its higher education system remain.

Cities like Hanoi are on average considerably higher than the rest of the country, making attending university there prohibitive to most rural students. Photo/Karl Grobl

In Vietnam, as in much of developing Asia, rural and lower-income people have far less access to higher education than richer, urban residents. Recent figures speak to this disparity: in 2010, an average of 6.4 percent of students across Vietnam over the age of 15 had obtained a college/university certificate. But, this figure falls to only 4.5 percent in the rural Northeast and even further to 3.4 percent in the Mekong Delta, one of the country’s poorest regions. As in many other countries across Asia, cultural practices and traditions in Vietnam dictate that girls are more likely than boys to be kept out of school, as rural families that cannot afford to educate all of their children will typically educate their sons before their daughters.

Another challenge is that prices in the larger cities like Hanoi are on average considerably higher than the rest of the country, making attending university there prohibitive to most rural students. Hanoi’s consumer price index increased 2.47 percent between August and September of this year, leaving consumer prices 5.4 percent higher than at the end of 2011. In addition, Hanoi is one of the two largest educational centers in Vietnam, home to over 50 of the country’s 419 universities and many colleges and vocational schools. With so many of the leading universities, Hanoi attracts large numbers of students from other provinces. Only a small number of these students are able to get places in school dormitories, which are limited in number. Finding a place to live and arranging their personal expenses becomes one of their main tasks outside studying.

Thanks to a scholarship from the Shirin Pandju Merali Foundation, Nguyen Thi Thuong (second from left) now attends university in Hanoi.

However, some girls, such as Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuong from Thai Binh Province in northern Vietnam, are able to beat the odds, thanks to the Shirin Pandju Merali Foundation, which partnered with The Asia Foundation in 2011 to start a scholarship program for rural, low-income women to attend science and technology universities. She and 99 other girls from rural Vietnam are now earning university degrees – something their families would otherwise struggle to continue their education at university level. For Thuong, who is now in her second year at the Hanoi University of Technology, and many other young people like her from provinces beyond Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, getting to university is even more meaningful because it means a future not associated with hard work in frost and sun in the field. Greater access to professional fields such as science and technology is particularly important for Vietnam’s economic trajectory: to compete globally and within ASEAN, increasing job opportunities beyond agriculture to these sectors will be critical. Vietnam dropped 10 places to 75 on the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitive Index this year, swapping places with the Philippines, which rose 10 slots to 65.

I recently spoke with Thuong, and she shared that she along with many of her peers have struggled to get used to a new life in Hanoi, despite their enthusiasm to be attending university. They say that English, which is used in some of their science courses, presents a particular difficulty, since most were used to studying English only through reading books and rote memorization.

Despite these challenges before graduation, Thuong and her peers expressed their gratitude for the support from the Shirin Pandju Merali Foundation, and are determined to succeed in their new environment. For Vietnam, their success will be critical to the country’s global competitiveness and the next generation of leaders.

Dinh Kieu Nhung is The Asia Foundation’s Books for Asia program officer in Vietnam. She can be reached at dknhung@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

This article originally appeared on Give2Asia’s blog, Asian Philanthropy, in conjunction with their 10th Anniversary Forum.

Dr. Scott Rozelle posed a difficult question during his presentation at Give2Asia’s 10th Anniversary Forum: What caused wages to rise in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea such that these once-booming manufacturing centers relinquished their first-place manufacturing titles in the 1970s and 1980s to China? Indeed, the wage rate in South Korea, which was once 50 cents an hour, is now $13 an hour. Compare this to the annual real hour unskilled wage in China of $2 an hour. Dr. Roselle’s answer: Education. When a population has skills in math, language, science, and information technology, they earn a higher and internationally competitive wage. Subsequently, Dr. Rozelle’s message on the major solution to the wage and poverty gap in rural China was also clear: Education.

The numbers are telling. In China, the high school education gap between rural students and their city counterparts is such that 83 percent of children in city areas attend high school while only 40 percent of rural children do so. Studies in other countries like Mexico have shown that when large populations do not receive the skills they need to be employed at a high wage rate, they become unemployed. Generally, unemployment offers these populations three choices: (1) immigrate to a country where unskilled labor is paid more than in the home country; (2) join an informal economy to produce income; or (3) become involved in crime.

As co-director of the Rural Education Project (REAP), Dr. Rozelle hopes that China can make the push to higher wages and a more even distribution of wealth. REAP works in two ways. First, it designs and implements new programs, interventions, and conducts evaluations. Second, REAP partners with NGOs, government agencies, and others (corporations, universities, foundations) who are trying to implement projects in China. The principle is simple – seeing is believing. Show the positive effect of education and health programs in China and experiment to find cost-effective and scalable solutions.

Reliable data and research is an essential tool in REAP’s work. Dr. Rozelle explained that rural children suffer vulnerabilities in health and nutrition that children in the city do not. For example, REAP tested forty-thousand rural students and discovered that within that population 39 percent suffered from anemia. Anemia has the effect of lowering IQ between 10-20 points and brings about intense lethargy. REAP also tested twenty thousand rural school children for eyesight problems: 15 percent of the children were nearsighted and only 142 of that 15 percent possessed glasses. In other terms, for every 40 nearsighted children, only one of them had proper eyeglasses. Testing showed that nearsightedness without proper eyewear lowered the student’s grade by one full grade point, i.e., grades that should be As were Bs. REAP also tested 1,700 rural school children for intestinal worms and found 24-40 percent of the children, depending on their location in Guizhou or Sichuan, were infected and subsequently suffered health and nourishment problems. Not surprisingly, when children were given diets high in iron and vitamins for their anemia, glasses for nearsightedness, and tablets to cure intestinal worms, their performance in school greatly improved.

Dr. Rozelle explained the ideal for philanthropic giving in China: Demonstrate to the government something works on one thousand school children, and then harness the government’s resources to transform those proven results into State policies that impact one million school children. The keys to action are (1) rigorously and simply demonstrate impact and (2) commit to scaling-up via policy engagement. The proper flow is transforming practice, analysis, and results into policy, and then transforming policy into a lasting impact on children. In parting, Dr. Rozelle emphasized that this kind of impact can only be created by involving all appropriate stakeholders such as children and their parents, teachers and principals, to local and high-level government officials. Education of China’s rural population depends on it.

Watch video from the event.

Tadashi Yamamoto. Photo courtesy of JCIE.

Tadashi Yamamoto, founder and president of the Japan Center for International Exchange, passed away on April 15 at the age of 76. He was an extraordinary person whose career was marked by extraordinary accomplishment. He was a liberal internationalist, an optimist who believed wholeheartedly that cultural exchanges and dialogue could bring peoples and nations closer together, especially those that previously had been adversaries. He believed that people-to-people exchanges in all their forms were a formidable vehicle for international understanding and peace. He committed his life to interpreting Japan to the world and the world to Japan.

Tadashi never served in a formal governmental role (other than chairing numerous advisory groups and commissions), but he formed close and influential relationships with political leaders in Japan, the United States, Germany, Australia, the United Kingdom, Korea, and China. He was responsible, sometimes single-handedly, more often in strategic partnership, for parliamentary exchanges, intellectual dialogues, Track II dialogues, “wise men” groups, corporate citizenship study missions, workshops on “non-traditional security” threats and global health, and much more. He was formally honored for his life”s work by the governments of Australia, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Upon conferment of the Order of the Rising Sun Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon by the Government of Japan in July 2011 (for distinguished achievements in international relations, Japanese studies, or promotion of Japanese culture), the JCIE staff published a 36-page Commemorative Booklet highlighting milestones in Tadashi”s 47 years of nongovernmental public service, with testimonials from a broad array of world leaders whose lives and careers he influenced.

My own friendship and professional collaboration with Tadashi began in 1987, when I was starting a multi-country research project on contemporary philanthropy in Asia. Tadashi”s name came up everywhere I sought advice and information. “You have to meet Yamamoto; he is Mr. Philanthropy in Japan.” And indeed he was already a veteran when I started. In 1974, JCIE had launched study tours and research on philanthropy in Japan and the United States. In 1977, JCIE created the Asia Community Trust, Japan”s first philanthropic intermediary loosely based on the U.S. community foundation model, but with developing Asia as its scope; and in the mid-1980s, JCIE had already organized a series of Keidanren study tours to the United States to exchange ideas about corporate philanthropy. Tadashi”s deep commitment to philanthropy – private action for public benefit – was at the core of his aspirations for global citizenship.

With Tadashi”s intellectual support and gentle mentoring, we launched a pioneering series of studies of local philanthropic traditions and the current state of philanthropy and civil society in East Asia, resulting in published volumes in 1991 (Philanthropy and the Dynamics of Change in East and Southeast Asia), 1993 (Evolving Patterns of Asia-Pacific Philanthropy), and JCIE”s monumental Emerging Civil Society in the Asia Pacific Community in 1995. These became the intellectual basis of the Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium, a research and advocacy network established in Osaka in December 1994, which Tadashi and I led for a decade. JCIE went on to publish a distinguished series of other books on philanthropy and civil society in Japan and Asia.

Tadashi was a remarkable person, warm, engaging, gentle, passionate, committed, yet tolerant of cultural differences, always curious, and always busy and fully engaged in the many projects he undertook simultaneously and in sequence. He was a visionary, fiercely advocating a world of peace through dialogue. He will be missed for the person he was, his many accomplishments, and his unswerving belief in the community-building promise of people-to-people exchanges.

Dr. Barnett F. Baron is president & CEO of Give2Asia. He can be reached at bbaron@give2asia.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

In 1863, John D. Rockefeller sold his first kerosene to China and made his first gift to China missions. He was 24 years old. He could not have dreamed that both his future oil company and future foundation would one day dominate the American commercial and cultural presence in China.

Indeed, the Rockefeller China story is America’s China story. The first three John D. Rockefellers were engaged with China from the time of the American Civil War to Deng Xiaoping’s reform era. Across the 20th century, their philanthropic investment in China’s science, medicine, and higher education far outpaced any other American source – upwards of a billion dollars. The Rockefeller interests in China’s commerce, religion, science, and art epitomize the multi-dimensional, non-governmental forces that continue to shape U.S.-China relations today.

The Rockefeller family story that began in the late 19th century continues today: several years ago members of the 4th and 5th generation gathered in Beijing to dedicate a Chinese statue of John D. Rockefeller. They followed by about 90 years John Jr. and his wife Abby’s 1921 trip to dedicate the Rockefeller Foundation’s flagship institution. This family keystone memory was intensified a year later when Chinese bandits kidnapped Abby’s sister Lucy Aldrich, daughter of Senator Aldrich of Rhode Island. Despite family consternation, Abby wrote Lucy, “I am sure this incident will not kill your love of China any more than it does ours.”

The family’s affinity for Asia is intrinsically interesting, but it is also important politically and culturally. As early as the 1920s, John Jr. and Abby’s world view came to encompass Chinese religion and art and the conviction that China mattered, not just culturally, but also politically. Their six famous children – Babs, John III, Nelson, David, Winthrop, and Laurence – grew up frolicking in Asian gardens, tiptoeing through Buddha rooms, and eating on antique Asian China. The Rockefeller family’s embrace of Asian peoples and civilization influenced American perceptions of China, in part because of their prestigious social position but even more because their cosmopolitan values shaped the institutions they created, institutions which are still influential today.

Over the course of the 20th century, several hundred Chinese institutions and many thousands of Chinese scholars and practitioners received Rockefeller philanthropic support. These institutions and scholars absorbed, adapted, and reinvented American learning and sometimes they rejected it altogether. Rockefeller philanthropy’s sustained emphasis on science and medicine transformed and secularized the American cultural role in Republican China. It legitimized an American scientific influence and a tradition of intellectual and professional relationships that transcended Mao’s China and continues to distinguish the bilateral relationship.

Rockefeller philanthropic institutions have long served as a bellwether for the American non-governmental presence in China. Their formative influence on China’s science and medicine defined the post-missionary era in the first half of the century. Their re-entry into China after Nixon’s opening was carefully orchestrated by China’s leaders. In a late-night meeting, Zhou Enlai reminded David Rockefeller of his family’s beneficial role. When Rockefeller Foundation president John Knowles was dying of cancer, Deng Xiaoping called to express sympathy.

In 1979, the Rockefeller Foundation and its former subsidiary, the now independent China Medical Board, were invited to reprise their historic roles, bringing resources to rebuild China’s medical infrastructure and revitalize its life sciences, and to link China with global scientific networks. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund concentrated on strategic dialogue and environmental programs. The Asian Cultural Council invited some of the first individual Chinese artists to study and perform in the United States. And the Asia Society led the way in public education about the People’s Republic of China.

When the first Rockefeller envoys went to China, it was widely referred to as “the sick man of Asia” – hard to believe now as its rise as a global power is rapidly changing the calculus for non-governmental relationships as much as for U.S. political and economic relations. Today, China’s investment in its own universities, think tanks, and cultural institutions dwarfs any potential contribution from an American organization.

Historic Rockefeller China philanthropy was successful in great part because of a convergence with Chinese priorities. The evolving new strategies for Rockefeller institutions endeavor to align Rockefeller programs with China’s most progressive new directions. These include equitable health care, artistic creativity, energy sustainability, civil society, and enlightened foreign aid. Since international philanthropy is most successful when it responds to a common agenda and becomes integrated with the existing fabric of a country, Rockefeller philanthropy’s second century in China looks promising.

Asia Foundation trustee Mary Brown Bullock is a Visiting Distinguished Professor of China Studies at Emory University, president emerita of Agnes Scott College, and chair of the China Medical Board. This piece was adapted from her new book, The Oil Prince’s Legacy: Rockefeller Philanthropy in China, co-published in June 2011 by the Stanford University Press and the Woodrow Wilson Center Press. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

The Asia Foundation has been programming in China since 1979, providing financial support and technical assistance to Chinese partners in academia, non-governmental organizations, and government institutions in the areas of law and governance, environmental protection, empowerment of women and disadvantaged groups, and disaster management.

The streets of Vietnam’s biggest cities reveal unmistakable signs of wealth. Mercedes and Lexus luxury cars are common, and now and then, you can catch a glimpse of a Bentley or a Maybach gliding along the congested thoroughfares. Vietnamese “new rich” can now access the latest fashion and accessories in designer shops that line the corridors of the country’s expensive hotels.

Young couples stroll along Hanoi's Hoan Kiem Lake. In recent years, Vietnam's largest cities are showing greater signs of prosperity. Photo by Karl Grobl.

Conspicuous consumption may be much more visible now in the cities, but a visitor doesn’t have to look too hard or travel too far from the urban areas to see a very different economic reality that exists for most of Vietnam’s 89 million citizens.

Consistent high growth, averaging 7.3 percent this past decade, has brought about a significant drop in Vietnam’s poverty rate, from as high as 75 percent in the mid-1980s to 14.5 percent in 2008. However, these achievements are fragile: the ongoing global economic crisis and the demanding new challenges that a Vietnam in transition now faces – from a weak banking sector and an outdated education system to environmental degradation and a growing rural-urban divide – make it difficult to maintain this pace of growth. Moreover, high inflation and currency devaluation are undermining the poverty reduction effort, pushing many Vietnamese back under the poverty line in just the last few years. And, with Vietnam’s rise to lower-middle-income nation status in 2008, many international and bilateral donors are already announcing their departure to divert funding to lesser-developed regions.

Given the demands on the government’s budget and with decreasing foreign aid expected in the years to come, the long term resources needed to address many of Vietnam’s development challenges will have to also come from domestic sources. Vietnam has a long tradition of philanthropy and community assistance, reflected in such folk sayings as “Whole leaves wrap torn leaves.” But until now, there has not been any systematic research on domestic giving patterns and trends, mechanisms through which people and companies give, or what motivates giving. To help answer these questions, The Asia Foundation recently supported the Vietnam Asia-Pacific Economic Center in Ha Noi to carry out the first-ever assessment of philanthropic giving to identify strengths and weaknesses in current giving practices and inform policy recommendations to strengthen philanthropic giving, both in the business community and among the general public.

When asked, both urban and rural households showed a strong desire in charitable giving, at 51 and 73 percent, respectively. Of the different kinds of charitable giving, people give most to natural disasters, the poor, and religious charities. On average, households give the cash equivalent of roughly $40 a year, which is not an insubstantial sum given per capita income is slightly more than $1,000 a year, and considerably less in many parts of Vietnam, especially in rural areas. We can also see that the potential for increasing contribution is high. Seventy four percent of urban households and 89 percent of rural households said that their current level of contributions was modest, with some 90 percent of households in both urban and rural areas indicating that their contributions have no or only minor impact on the household economy.

Of the charitable contributions made, people by far prefer unofficial giving channels, particularly temples and churches, over official channels such as government agencies, mass organizations like the Fatherland Front, or the work place. In cities, only 37 percent of contributions went through official channels, while in the countryside, this figure drops to 10 percent. When asked why people give, the strongest reason was the desire to share the difficulties of others and the satisfaction received. Following the example set by neighbors is also a significant factor, especially in the countryside. Survey data consistently show that rural residents have stronger interest in giving and participating in charitable activities than their urban counterparts, while some 20 percent of urban residents expressed dissatisfaction with the effectiveness and transparency of charitable activities and the channels of giving currently available to them.

The business portion of the survey also yielded some surprising results, most notably the significant differences in charitable activities between the companies in Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City. At the time the survey was conducted, 66 percent of businesses in Ho Chi Minh City reported they were supporting at least one charitable activity, compared to only eight percent in Ha Noi. The level of giving is also markedly different:  businesses in Ho Chi Minh City gave about eight times more than businesses in Ha Noi. In-depth interviews revealed that these differences reflect the higher dynamism of businesses in Ho Chi Minh City in advertising their brands and awareness of corporate social responsibility, as well as a longer-term vision of linking community development with private sector growth.

An additional reason may contribute to the difference in corporate philanthropy between Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City: only 32 percent of businesses in Ha Noi believed that charitable activities are effective, compared to 56 percent of businesses in Ho Chi Minh City. Businesses in both cities complained about a lack of transparency, openness, and confidence in how donations are used. Nevertheless, the business survey identifies great potential for increased corporate philanthropy. Seventy eight percent of businesses in Ho Chi Minh City and 55 percent in Ha Noi indicated that their contributions were low or moderate. Corporate success and corporate leadership are key determinants of the charitable activities a business undertakes, but preferential policies such as tax exemption play little or no role in business charitable contribution decisions. When asked about tax concessions for charitable giving, most business representatives were unclear about tax policies or doubtful of the benefits they may bring.

Over all, the research shows that corporate social responsibility is still very nascent in Vietnam and much can be done to increase awareness of philanthropy in the business sector. Despite that, the survey findings shed light on Vietnam’s tremendous capacity for giving in both the general population and the corporate sector – much-needed support to meet the development needs of the country. While the desire to give is high, there is also a great desire for more transparent and effective channels for giving, as well as more professional organizations capable of using the donations to truly reach those in need.

Kim N. B. Ninh is The Asia Foundation’s country representative in Vietnam. She can be reached at kninh@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

Wang Zhenyao, dean of Beijing Normal University One Foundation Philanthropy Research Institute and an Asia Foundation partner, is leading the delegation, which includes editors from China Business News, IFENG, Sohu.com, China Philanthropy Times, and others. Representatives from the Hua Min Charity Foundation, the Lao Niu Foundation, the Tencent Foundation, and several other foundations are also participating. While in San Francisco, the delegation will also meet with Half the Sky, the Google Foundation, Facebook, Twitter, and more. Earlier in their visit, they met with organizations and news outlets such as the Ford Foundation, Time Magazine, The New York Times, and the Clinton Foundation in New York.