However one defines the nonprofit sector in China, it is growing rapidly, despite the legal and regulatory uncertainty surrounding it. By end of 2010, registered nonprofits in China will number about half a million, with millions more grassroots organizations operation outside the formal legal regime. This continuing growth the sector adds urgency to questions about the role of civil society in China, organizational governance, the parallel growth of Chinese philanthropy, , and the relationship between grassroots nonprofits and the larger government-organized NGOs (known as GONGOs).
The Nonprofits in China Domain focuses on the key challenges facing the growing Chinese social sector. We work to leverage Harvard’s resources to convene scholars and practitioners in Chinese nonprofits, and to catalyze practical solutions and academic research on subjects related to nonprofits in China.
On campus, the Domain is facilitating the convening of a Harvard conference on nonprofits in China, in which small panels of faculty from Harvard and other universities discuss specific dimensions of the nonprofit sector in China. This conference will lay the foundation for a course on Chinese Civil Society the follow academic year.
In China, the Domain is engage in joint research projects, executive training activities, and academic exchanges. It is also collaborating in the development of two new nonprofit support initiatives: The China Foundation Center, and the One Foundation Philanthropic Research Institute at Beijing Normal University. Both represent Chinese responses to the nation’s need for greater coherence in the sector, greater discipline in nonprofit management, and greater rigor in the theories and strategies that guide organizations in the sector.
For the international development community, the Domain works with international foundations in learning the landscape of China’s nonprofit sector, and developing aid strategies and evaluation plans in response to the needs of and changing environment for China’s nonprofits.
The Nonprofits in China Domain of Practice’s work on these questions is guided by an Advisory Committee, in close collaboration with affiliated research Fellows and Faculty Members. In less than two years, Xing Hu , Domain Manager, and the committee have engaged dozens of scholars, practitioners, and alums working to strengthen the sector in China and solve its unique puzzles.
Domain Steering Committee
Xing Hu, Domain Manager
L. David Brown, Senior Fellow
Eadie (Hua) Chen, Mid-Career MPA
Fellow
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Advisory
Committee
William Alford, Henry L. Stimson Professor of
Law at Harvard Law School; Vice Dean for the Graduate
Program and International Legal Studies; Director of
East Asian Legal Studies; Chair, Harvard Project on
Disability.
Lincoln C. Chen is President of the China Medical
Board. Dr. Chen was the founding director of the Harvard
Global Equity Initiative (2001-2006), and in an earlier
decade, the Taro Takemi Professor of International
Health and Director of the University-wide Harvard
Center for Population and Development Studies
(1987-1996). In 1997-2001, Dr. Chen served as Executive
Vice-President of the Rockefeller Foundation.
Peter F. Geithner is an advisor to the Asia Center at
Harvard University and a consultant to the Asia Pacific
Philanthropy Consortium, Rockefeller Foundation,
Sasakawa Peace Foundation, and other organizations. Mr.
Geithner was Ford Foundation’s first representative in
China.
Arthur Kleiman is one of the world’s
leading medical anthropologists. He is also a major
figure in cultural psychiatry, global health, and social
medicine. Kleinman is the Esther and Sidney Rabb
Professor of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology of
Harvard University.
William Kirby, T. M. Chang Professor of China
Studies at Harvard; Spangler Family Professor of
Business Administration; Director, Fairbank Center for
Chinese Studies.
Elizabeth J. Perry is Henry Rosovsky Professor of
Government at Harvard and Director of the
Harvard-Yenching Institute. She is a comparativist with
special expertise in the politics of China.
Anthony Saich,
Daewoo Professor of
International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy
School，Director
of the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and
Innovation, and Faculty Chair of Asia Programs and the
China Public Policy Program, Executive Committee Member of
the Fairbank Center of China Studies and Asia Center
of Harvard.
Faculty
and Researchers Involved
Christopher Stone, Daniel and Florence Guggenheim
Professor of the Practice of Criminal Justice, Harvard
Kennedy School; Director Hauser Center for Nonprofit
Organizations and Program in Criminal Justice Policy and
Management
James P. Honan, Senior Lecturer on
Education, Harvard School of
Education
Marshall Ganz, Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard
Kennedy School
Joan Kaufman, Lecturer in Social Medicine at
Harvard Medical School and Founding Director of the AIDS
Public Policy Training Project at the Kennedy
School
Bill Ryan, Research Fellow, Hauser
Center
Colin Maclay, Managing Director of the Berkman
Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Law
School
Christopher Marquis, Associate
Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business
School
Qiushi Liu, Executive Director and
Associate Professor, NGO Research Center, School of
Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University
Bio
(last
updated Feb 9, 2011)
