New philanthropy means philanthropy run by new comers, such as businessmen, investors and journalists. New philanthropy is a new force in philanthropy sector. It improves and supplements the whole sector and makes it more inclusive, open and integrative. It will strengthen interaction and integration of philanthropy sector with other sectors.

 

When it comes to new philanthropy, it is not appropriate to see it in conflict with "old" philanthropy. In term of objective, there is no different between old and new philanthropies. New philanthropy is not an exclusive tag of this era. Neither is it a new field independent of the whole philanthropy community, nor a new theory or academic point of view. Economic, technological and social development have brought a whole set of new ideas, methods, practices and models in philanthropy. They will lead the future trend and, more importantly, better serve sound social development. Compared with traditional models, new philanthropy will resolve social problems in a more effective, thorough, and equitable way, meet social needs, and create social values to promote sustainable development of human society. New philanthropy is a supplement needed for traditional philanthropy. It represents future development trend and the most important force in social innovation.

 

 

    The features and trends of new philanthropy can be summarized as follows: promote new ideas, explore new fields, identify new driving forces, integrate new platforms, try new ways, adopt new technologies and recruit new talents.

 

·Promote new ideas. We believe that, under current social conditions, it is time to reconsider the social objectives of philanthropy. When philanthropy is merely understood as donation and when donation becomes a formality and far way from its beneficiaries, alienation of philanthropy will occur. For example, if money comes easily from philanthropy, it will have a subtle impact on the status, relationship and image of the parties. The beneficiaries' independence and dignity will be undermined, leading to laziness, abuse, waste, interpersonal tension, and even corruption. The donors' enthusiasm will also be sapped. With this backdrop, we propose three new philanthropic ideas, namely inner harmony of human beings, social harmony and harmony between man and the nature. We believe we should get rid of development that comes without social and inner harmony and at the expense of the environment. Innovation in means and mechanisms should start with changes in ideas which in turn come from choice of social objectives. YouChange's strategic objective is to promote social justice and harmonious development by exploring innovative ways of philanthropy in China.

 

·Explore new ways: Chinese foundations used to focus on education and traditional fields of disaster relief, poverty relief and assistance to disadvantaged groups such as people with disabilities. Scientific and technological promotion as well as public health took secondary position. Other fields such as environmental protection, art and culture, community development, policy promotion and philanthropy support got much less attention. In our strategy, we choose to give more emphasis on system establishment.

 

·Identify new driving forces. New driving forces come from the general public. Voluntarism and civic awareness are the main driving forces in the new philanthropy movement. The open and reciprocal spirit of Wikipedia generated by the new economic model with the Internet as a major representative is a new interpretation of voluntarism. The establishment of YouChange Volunteers Supporting Center is based on this understanding.

 

·Integrate new resources. One of the important features of new philanthropy is cross-sector cooperation. Recent years have seen NGO service in government procurement, the cooperation between the business community and NGOs, social innovation practices joined by scholars, and in many cases cross-sector cooperation. This suggests that new philanthropy is not the monopoly or one-man show of the third sector. The government and the business community have become an important driving force. Investment from the businesses has made entrepreneurs active players in new philanthropy. YouChange hopes to become a bridge in cross-sector cooperation.

 

·Try new ways. New philanthropy is an integration of market economy and philanthropy. The introduction of market mechanisms and business operation models, another important part of new philanthropy, has made foundations more sustainable. Social enterprises, the biggest innovation to increase efficiency in philanthropy, are the main form. Support of social enterprises in an important part of YouChange's mission.

 

·Adopt new technologies. The Internet has completely changed how human society owns information. Information network platform symbolizes some basic features of modern civil society. How human beings understand and influence the society has consequently changed. Undoubtedly, it has a profound impact on the changes of philanthropy as new philanthropy is more reliant than traditional one on web technology. YouChange will strive to become a driving force in this trend.

 

·Recruit new talents. New economic boom provides new material basis and broad space for new philanthropy talents devoted to social innovation. New philanthropy leaders will emerge one after another in different sectors. One of YouChange's mission is to identify and support them.

 

 

The 20^th century witnessed the most violent changes in human society. Big wars broke out in the first half and the second half was characterized by ideological rivalry, economic globalization, and new technologies such as the Internet. Important changes took place in political, economic, social, technological and almost all fields. In the first decade of the 21^st century, the Internet has been further developed and consolidated. It is fair to say that a universal web has been put in place. It is up to social innovation that reaches the greatest human wisdom rather than mere scientific and technological innovation to decide this web is the Tower of Babylon that challenges the authority of God or Noah’s ark that promotes all-around social development. The international financial crisis broke out in 2007 and 2008 suddenly destroyed all illusions brought about by economic globalization. Growth-based economic development model that is totally reliant on human selfish nature will not only deny well-being to human beings, but also intensify the tensions between human beings and the environment and human beings themselves. We face a new challenge on this fundamental question.

 

It is time for the economic sector to have a soul searching and be concerned about the issue of efficiency and equity. The philanthropy sector should also ask itself about this question.

In short, in the past 100 years, politics and economics were the major forces to change human beings. In the next 100 years, social forces will gradually become the major force in shaping the society. Therefore, we must have new ideas, new tools and new ways. We must adopt a integrative rather than confrontational, dynamic rather than static, open rather than closed perspective to understand new philanthropy. I believe this perspective is the soul that new philanthropy should promote and follow.