| NGO talent is one of the core elements advancing the development of the NGOindustry. The growth course of talents in the NGO Charity industry faces several seriouschallenges. Such include small number of current NGO Charity talents, insufficientgrowth of new entering talents, deficiency in professional expertise, lack of receivedattention and absence of systematic talent training and depositing mechanism. Althoughthe concept of venture philanthropy was brought into China as early as2001, thedomestic venture philanthropy is so far primarily investing in public institutions andprojects. It is far less than enough regarding funding for practitioners and their personalcareer growth in the NGO philanthropy industry. Until2010, Narada Foundation set aprecedent on NGO talent venturing nationwide by firstly initiating its funding programfor NGO leaders and founders.In this paper, the concept of talent venturing is such defined that it is deemed asone form of venture philanthropy. The essence of talent venturing is identifying keytalents from among the NGO practitioners who have the leadership potential and whosedevelopment stage has reached a certain level. For those identified, monetary and non-monetary supports are provided so they can achieve personal career growth. And byleveraging such individual career growth, a maximized social return may be achievedfrom various aspects such as social impact and talent culturing. Following a thoroughintroduction and analysis of talent venturing abroad， the Ginkgo Fellow Program, thefirst NGO talent venturing program of the Narada Foundation, is introduced as a mainexample in the venture philanthropy industry in China. A detailed analysis is done overits background, its implementation in the past4years and the comparison with othersimilar programs in this country. Combined with the survey results from the GinkgoFellows, it is concluded that the Ginkgo Fellow Program has a clear positioning andactively responds to problems surrounding talents in the domestic NGO Charityindustry. Both the Ginkgo Fellows and their organizations have benefited from theGinkgo Fellow Program. Further, a comparative analysis is done between the AshokaFellow program and the Ginkgo Fellow program from perspectives of project objective,decision process and training method. The analysis result shows, despite that bothprograms are from the NGO talent venturing area, they represent two different models because they differentiate each other in their positioning, mission, people involved andmaturity level of fund-receivers. Still further analysis shows, the Ashoka Fellowprogram follows a venturing model while the Ginkgo Fellow program practices a seed-guarding mode. The goal of the Ginkgo Fellow program is to support and guard thepractitioners currently working in the public service field, enhance their confidence andsense of security and broaden their vision. This seed-guarding mode is adapt to theoverall situation of NGO industry in China where there is a small number of currentNGO Charity talents and insufficient growth of new entering talents.This paper makes following suggestions for the Ginkgo Fellow program, otherdomestic NGO talent venturing programs and the government side as well, whichmainly include: identify more frontline NGO charity talents who need support, establisha multi-party joint cooperation mechanism involving foundations, enterprises,government and overseas foundations, and enhance information sharing and improveresource use efficiency; develop more need-satisfying talent venturing programs tosatisfy, selectively help NGO charity talents to build entrepreneur’s thinking, induce thetransition from pure NGO charity organization to social enterprise, and make overallplanning regarding project selection and emphasize the importance of projectassessment. Thus by redesigning the innovating route for NGO venturing programs,they can become more adapt to the reality and situation of NGO talents in China. |
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