序一 回应中国年轻人的梦想
十八年前,我的慈善学课堂上出现了第一位来自中国北方的学生,她当时在印第安纳大学攻读慈善研究专业硕士学位。从那时起,我有了越来越多来自中国的学生:他们中有本科生、硕士生、博士生,我还支持了一些中国的访问学者在美国开展研究工作。
我有幸到访过中国四次。第一次旅程从香港开始,接连去了广州和北京的几所著名高校进行交流和举办讲座。我的听众大多是年轻人,他们渴望了解美国的公益行业和志愿服务,其中几名学生随后便来了印第安纳大学继续求学。
我经常思考这样一个问题:为什么中国,特别是中国的年轻人,对美国独特的慈善和志愿服务文化一直如此感兴趣?虽然中国有着悠久的慈善历史,但中国的慈善事业更多由家族和领袖主导,而不是由社区和民众主导。美国的捐赠人和志愿者可以在合法的范围内自由地支持他们关心的议题,但在中国,这些活动受到更多的监管。美国的慈善通常热热闹闹,看上去有些混乱却又不断突破现状;而中国人口广布、历史悠久,其慈善事业更加倾向于维护社会和谐稳定。
简亚当斯Jane Addams 是美国慈善事业的先驱,她也一直激励着我们在印第安纳大学的工作。从她著名的提问我们该如何回应年轻人的梦想呢中我寻找到了答案。在一个世纪前,她在芝加哥建造新移民的社区中心赫尔民宿(Hull House)时意识到,鼓励年轻人尤其是那些来自富裕家庭的年轻人投身民主社会建设,是回应他们理想主义的最佳方式。
那些在印第安纳大学和其他美国高校的慈善研究专业求学的中国学生,还有那些我在中国的讲座和课堂上遇到的年轻学子,都印证了这个充满智慧的见解。这一代的年轻人将会是被历史铭记的一代,他们享受着前所未有的繁荣,也经历着诸多的未知和劫难。以史为鉴,他们担心未来需要承受的将会更多。
未知向来使人不安,充满挑战。然而,未知也会使那些善良的人、有能力的人和有理想的人通过努力爬上顶峰,证明自己。这些人不仅在政界和商界,他们也存在于不计其数的正式或者非正式的团体里,就像美国前总统也做过驻华大使乔治布什George H.W.Bush所说的,他们是可以照亮黑夜的万点星光。他们可以利用的资源不仅包括来自税收和商业的资金,还包括志愿者和捐赠人无偿奉献的时间和捐款。他们为了理想而奋斗,不断学习这就是那么多的中国年轻人,而不仅仅是一些已有建树的学者,一直在研究美国慈善的原因。
这本书便源自对实现这样一个梦想的渴望。它由与我一同工作过的两名学生和学者一起撰写,旨在向中国读者展示她们认为美国非营利组织中有价值的部分。她们写作本书,并不是为了鼓励模仿,而是为了帮助人们理解在典型的美国社区中公益慈善的运作方式以及探究它在中国运作的可能性:开创一个具有中国特色的慈善事业。
公众参与的活力需要被重新唤起,公民需要更多地参与公共事务、回应公共问题,慈善基金需要可信任的代理人这些都是中国当前正在经历的挑战,并且在未来一段时间内仍需持续关注。道阻且长,但这些任务对中国未来的成功至关重要,值得中国的年轻人在未来的岁月里,用智慧、奉献和努力去不断地进取,努力实现。
我们该如何回应年轻人的梦想呢?简亚当斯问。
提醒他们什么是真正值得追求的,正是这本书的价值所在。
美国印第安纳大学礼来家族慈善学院资深院长顾问
Leslie Lenkowsky
Responding to the Dreams of Chinese Youth
It has now been nearly eighteen years since I taught about philanthropy to my first Chinese student, a woman who had come from Northern China to enroll in Indiana Universitys Master of Arts in Philanthropic Studies program. Since then, I have had so many more students I cannot count them: undergraduates, Masters students, doctoral candidates, and several visiting faculty members whose work in the United States I sponsored.
I have also been privileged to visit China four times. The first trip began in Hong Kong and included stops at several great Chinese universities in Guangzhou and Beijing, with my audiences mostly being young people, eager to learn about American philanthropy and volunteering. Several subsequently came to Indiana University to study.
I have often asked myself why there wasand still issuch interest in China, especially among its youth, in activities that are so distinctively associated with the United States. Philanthropy has a long history in China, but its context is very different, directed more toward family and leaders than to communities and citizens. American donors and volunteers are largely free to pursue whatever causes they want within the bounds of legality, while in China, they have to operate under the watchful eye of government and its surrogates. Philanthropy in the United States can often be annoying, disrupting a complacent status quo. China places great value on maintaining harmony among its many, far-flung peoples.
I found a clue in a famous question a pioneer of American philanthropy and an inspiration for us at Indiana University, Jane Addams, used to ask: How shall we respond to the dreams of youth? A century ago, when she was creating Hull House, a community center for new immigrants to Chicago, she realized that engaging young people, especially from better-off families, in the hard work of building a democratic society was the best way to respond to their idealism.
I think the Chinese students who have been coming to Indiana University and other schools to study philanthropy, as well as those who go to the lectures and classes in China that I and others have given, reflect the continuing wisdom of this insight. They are part of a generation that has been marked by history. They have already known unprecedented prosperity. But they have experienced uncertainty and disaster as well. If Chinese history is any guide, they fear they might experience a lot more.
Uncertainty is never comforting, and it always has its challenges. But it is in times of challenge that good people, competent people, idealistic people, rise to the top and prove themselves. And they do so not just in government or business, but in the myriad associations-formal and informal-that former U.S. President and Ambassador to China George H. W. Bush once called a thousand points of light. Moreover, they use not just funds from taxes or commerce, but resources of time and money voluntarily given and responsibly managed. To learn how to do that in order to build the China of their dreams while avoiding the nightmares of its past is why so many young Chinese-and not a few older oneshave been studying the role philanthropy plays in the United States.
This book is a product of that desire. Written by two students and faculty members I have had the great pleasure to work with, it aims to show Chinese readers what they consider valuable about the nonprofit organizations of the United States. Their intent is not to encourage imitation, but rather, to foster understanding of how philanthropy works in a typical American community and how it might work in China: to help build what one could call philanthropy with Chinese characteristics.
Reinvigorating the civic health of a nation; engaging the public to meet common needs; being faithful stewards of philanthropic fundsthese are important tasks that are already well underway in China and await continued attention and nurture in the years ahead. They are not easy tasks, but they are crucial for Chinas success in the future, worthy of the talent, dedication, and drive Chinas young people can bring to them.
How shall we respond to the dreams of youth? Jane Addams asked. By reminding them what is really worth dreaming about. This book is a valuable contribution to that goal.
Senior Counsellor to the Dean of the Lilly Family School of
Philanthropy at Indiana University
Leslie Lenkowsky
序二
在我的心目中,徐宇珊和朱照南是两位学生辈的小姑娘,而现今,她们俩居然开始联合写书了。书稿就摆在面前,前沿的话题,国外的事实,不服尽管来读。
转念一想,也正是年轻人特有的心灵触角与学术视野的结合,才使其在国外的社会公益原野,充满兴致地去掬捧那些关于表层事实与深层暗线的公益花朵。一次简单的国外公益行,就足以让一个人滔滔不绝地讲述国外的新鲜见闻,更何况这里的行动者都特别用心,进行系统化的探访和询问,以及学术视角的资料查阅与呼应;转念一想,他们都已经成为领域里的博士研究人员了。
在书中,美国公益领域里的事情被纵剖一百年,全部用具体的案例形式展示出来,给读者一个人家是如何做的的实例展现。两位作者用学者的严谨、年轻人的好奇、女性的细腻,将观察到、访谈到的事实汇总一起,真实、形象、可信。
在勾勒公益组织网络化的部分里,组织的案例又具体到美国的一个县域之内,因而又带有一种地域解剖的性质,从而既使我们看到了单个组织是如何运作的,又使我们看到了它们之间的整体关联网络。
最浓重的一笔还在于对公益组织一百年来变化脉络的梳理。从最基础意义上的慈善到社会公众的卷入,从社会公益组织的网络化到社会企业、社会创新、公益创投这些新型公益运作手法的兴起,整体性的变动脉络被系统化地梳理出来。
回眸一看,这不也正是我们国家当前社会公益领域里所发生的事情吗?大洋两岸国家的一个对照与相互呼应,让人更容易开阔视野,对事情的变化发展有一个总体格局上的清晰把握。更何况,人家那里的事情经历了一个更长的变动时期,有着更深远的历史渊源,因而如此的变动更有启发性。
我们还可以将书中阐述出来的事实当作继续研讨的原材料。有的人或许因此得出结论,说公益领域在整体性地成长,并延伸向市场与政府这另外两个部门,形成三部门融合的趋势;还有的人或许会解读出,公益组织越来越需要专业化的解决社会问题的能力,并且看到,在社会创新、公益创投这些新型的概念下,所掩藏的唯一精髓就是要有解决问题的专业能力。
你尽可以有你自己的个性化解读,可以认为本来就没有一套统一的答案甚至统一的表述,也完全可以保留一些不解与思考。而唯一不变的则是,一些事情正在发生着。
北京师范大学社会发展与公共政策学院教授
陶传进
以欣赏的心情阅读并书写