China Next Foundation

ChinaNext Foundation is a unique charitable foundation. CNF does not have a preference over any conventional charitable cause, such as poverty reduction, cancer research or autistic child support. Rather, we'd like to think of ourselves as a portal, a platform and a bridge working to serve the growth of Chinese civil society as a whole. Why support... the charitable sector in China? We believe the non-government charities in China are as important as they are overlooked. Just like their counterparts in the West, they are delivering much-needed support to many of the less privileged; but unlike their Western colleagues, they also play significant roles as the only legal organizations outside the traditional institutions. In short, they are the pioneers of a civil society in our minds. Why support the people in the charitable sector? Unfortunately China's civil sector is very small and underdeveloped, with the social environment and the ways they often have to operate being too complex for direct international aid to make sense. This difficulty is only compounded with foreign money donated to local charities receiving increased scrutiny (read: trouble) from the authorities, along with international foundations' objectives and agendas not necessarily being applicable to those of Chinese society. The availability of international aid being spoon fed to them actually reduces their ability to sustain themselves in the long run. In the end, China's getting rich after all; and we've found that international foundations have been experiencing an increasing amount of problems explaining to donors why they should support China while the problems in the West are plentiful. We find that supporting, training, and growing the local charity leaders is a much better approach. Every year, we work with our partners in China to select a small group of experienced charity leaders and give them appropriate support, training and exposure. Many of the NextFellows' charities have much larger budget than this Foundation, though we still ...Read More