Working to develop platforms with students as the base is perhaps one of the most important, and difficult, things to fully accomplish.

It is a group that we have been engaging with on a number of levels, and through our experiences we have come to understand requires a completely different approach and motivated by very different things, but that if you can effectively develop a program that engages students you can build a strong base of support that becomes a source of scale for impact and programs.

In the recent Ethical Magazine article, NGOs and activists - Zealot, hypocrite or genuine article?, Brendan May writes out his thoughts on the various species of NGO that exist in his world.

• The tunnel-visioned zealot
• The hypocrite
• The angry activist
• The smiling salesman
• The overfed giant
• The genuine article
• The critical friend

Doing a good job to highlight that there is a real spectrum of NGOs in the Western world, in reading the article it made me think about the fact that in China you have several separate spectrums that exist. Spectrums that often can include several different groups and ideologies.:

Spectrum 1: The GONGO
In a league of their own, China's GONGOs - short for Government Organized Non-Government Organization - offer a wide range of operations and people. At the upper range of this spectrum, you are going to have those who are driven by policies, old relationships, and the old guard. Internally, these groups are going to be run in a manner that would resemble the United Way in the United States. Leaders are typically political appointees, and they are not looking to be hyper efficient machines, but are looking to maintain a course that was set well before the current generation of leaders took the helm. however, over the last few years, what I have seen is that there is a new guard rising in the ranks. that, while the upper ranks may be from the old school, new recruits are just as eager to accomplish things as their peers in smaller, more grassroots, organizations would be.. but they are limited by the organizations.

Spectrum 2: The International NGO
International NGOs, and the recent number is in the 200 range, also present a spectrum of quality and approach, but at the basic level there are two subgroups: teachers and collaborators. the teachers are the groups who feel that they are there to teach the locals how to get it done. That, regardless of what the local conditions are, their process is what matters most and they are investing their time and effort to accomplish this task. Collaborators on the other hand, are doing their best to mimic a local grassroots organization by developing locally originated programs/ leadership, while leverage their global brands to access larger programs. They are less likely to be over preachy as their front lines will be staffed by locals, however, there is a difference in culture and approach that will provide a clear divide between the two groups.

Spectrum 3: The Local NGO
Like International NGOs, there are a couple of quick classifications that can occur at the fundamental organizational level:

• Mercenary NGOs - NGOs that will do anything for money. Not issue specific, and maintaining no core, these groups are perhaps the weakest in the system as their projects are not driven from a base, but are constantly on the move. Developing systems, and stabilizing people, are very difficult tasks for these groups, and maintaining a strong base of knowledge and partners can be difficult as they hop from one project to the other

• NGOs with int'l training - NGOs established by leaders who had been brought up within the international NGO network and have benefited from the training and structure of an established system. Sometimes moving from a feeling that things need to speed up, or that the international NGO will have limited long term potential, founders of this group of grassroots NGOs tend to fare better than others. In addition to understanding how to build programs, budgets, and funding proposals, they are less likely to find themselves in a the spin cycle that their mercenary counterparts find themselves in. Which is why many of these organizations have come to grow faster,and find acceptance, in areas that were previously off limits to others

• NGOs with purpose - NGOs that were founded by a group who was deeply affected by an issue. Perhaps it is a mother whose has a challenged child, or is a day labourer abuse by a boss, the founders of these organizations are often driven by a sense of fixing a wrong. A wrong that is personal to them, and catalyzed them to develop an organization that would support others.

With building the capacity of students being one of our core focuses, and great joys, I was privileged to once again be invited to speak in front of 150 AIESEC students as part of their Shaping Your Future Conference. As an organization that I think has one of the strongest communities of students, students who are socially minded, being in front of them for an hour an a half (speech, panel, and workshop) provided another opportunity for me to not just share my views on social entrepreneurship in China, but also take the pulse of their interests, concerns, and plans.

IDeas that were best flushed out during a 35 minute workshop where I asked participants to share (in groups of 10) the issues that they feel China will face going forward, and the role that they themselves will play through their employment and engagement through MNC, NGOs, as government officials, and socially focused enterprises.

True to form, the groups performed well.  Identifying topics that overlapped each other, without duplicating: Access to education, Over population, Urban/ Rural poverty gap, and air pollution. All issues that are of importance in China.

When it came to actually discussing solutions, and their role as future leaders, many of them were quick to point out the roles of socially minded entrepreneurs ( both NGO & NPO), and the important role that government policy played as well.

YEt, when it came to understand how they as students could support these efforts, the primary focus was to understand how they could afford to work for an NGO/ Social Enterprise right away.  to which, myself and others on the panel replied... you don't have to work in an NGO to be socially minded.

It was perhaps THE breakthrough of the evening for the students, who were expecting us to convince them that they had to go NGO, or that it was only through an NGO that issues could be solves.  That they could, through a multinational company, work to address issues they felt were important by choosing a multinational company whose goal (product, service, or CSR platform) would result in a positive impact as well, and that through that experience they could become a more effective NGO manager in the future.

Something I have no doubt will happen.