A number of leading multinational corporations and professional services firms in China, including McKinsey, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Novartis and Motorola, have entered into partnership with two of China’s leading governmental NPOs to launch Non-Profit Partners (NPP), a venture philanthropy foundation.

NPP’s aim is to promote the development of China’s non-profit sector by providing professional services on a pro bono basis in the areas of management, finance, accounting, law and marketing; multi-year financial support for capability-building; and fundraising assistance.

This will help to address what McKinsey’s research has identified as principal weaknesses in the Chinese non-profit sector: most NPOs in China have a severe shortage of skilled staff, while government-established non-profits absorb 85 per cent of all available resources. In most cases, grants made to smaller NPOs are for one year, which means these groups must dedicate a disproportionate amount of resources to fundraising. Founding board members of NPP will bear all of the administrative costs, so that all other donations will be passed in their entirety to supported NPOs.

Initially, NPP will focus on helping three to five NPOs, selected on the basis of whether their operating models can be replicated and their experience shared to the general benefit of the sector. Longer term, NPP hopes to see 20-25 NPOs in China become what NPP Managing Director and Senior Adviser to McKinsey Mark Yu-Ting Chen describes as ‘the standard-bearers’ for the sector. ‘Through these organizations,’ he says, ‘we expect to see an overall lifting of the standards and reputation of China’s non-profit sector in the eyes of the general public, as well as the corporate sector, over the next five years.’

For more information
Contact Mark Chen at mark.yuting.chen@gmail.com