公益和慈善

我们只是心平基金的发起人而已，伍松他们才是真正在一线的决策者。所以他们才会真正体会到困难在哪里。我个人的理解是，从长远的角度看，公益和慈善的最大困难就是很难找到合适的管理人才，哪国都一样。心平基金运气好，能有伍松他们的加入，作为发起人，我们很放心。能放心不是件容易的事。

Source: http://nteswjq.blog.163.com/blog/static/1269981201011213644934/

Public welfare and charity

> By Duan Yongping · his NetEase blog (nteswjq.blog.163.com, now closed; read from web archives) · 2010-02-12 · [Original link](http://nteswjq.blog.163.com/blog/static/1269981201011213644934/) ([archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20110719202116/http://nteswjq.blog.163.com:80/blog/static/1269981201011213644934/))

> This post includes letters from others or quoted material; Duan Yongping's own words are marked separately.

[Translator's note: a passage quoted from a blog reader's question in the comment section (unsigned) stands here in the original; it is not Duan Yongping's words and is not translated.]

We're only the founders of the Xinping Foundation; Wu Song and his team are the real decision-makers on the front line. So they're the ones who really feel where the difficulties are.

My personal understanding is that in the long run, the biggest difficulty in public welfare and charity is how hard it is to find suitable management talent, in every country.

The Xinping Foundation was lucky to have Wu Song and his team join; as founders we're very much at ease. Being able to be at ease isn't easy.

I haven't looked closely at the tax authorities' new exemption rules yet, but if so many people think there's a problem, there may really be a problem. I saw that there are also some caps on managers' pay; then talent will be even harder to find.

In China, with economic development and better lives, people have in recent years begun to care about and take part in public welfare and charity more and more. But on the whole it's still at a very early stage. Donors, managers and beneficiaries all still have a lot to learn. Even government departments have very little experience here, and many rules may take a long time to adjust properly.

Here's an example: the current requirement is that foundations spend 8% a year. Long ago I asked where the 8% came from, and the answer was: the people who drew up the rules back then had all kinds of opinions, from 5% to 20% and even more, nobody had any experience, and in the end they roughly settled on 8%. I don't think there was anything wrong with how this rule was made; in their place I might have reached the same conclusion. But once a problem is found, I hope it can be corrected as soon as possible, and we may be very lacking in this respect, especially for non-urgent things. From a management perspective, things that are important but not urgent are very easily neglected until they become urgent. I also hope regulators will refer more to the existing rules of developed countries when drawing up rules. Even the enemy's good things we should learn from, let alone theirs, since they're our partners in co-opetition.

I hope colleagues working in this area won't lose heart because of temporary (but possibly not short-lived) problems. From the moment we started doing this, we should have foreseen all sorts of difficulties, shouldn't we?

I'm not against using joint letters to raise opinions; at least it's a way to reflect problems. But I hope the regulators concerned can have simpler channels for feedback. I always feel joint letters are not very "harmonious"; don't use them unless you have no other choice.

Over these years we ourselves have also run into quite a few frustrating and aggravating things in this area; when I have time I can give some examples. But these problems are ones we're bound to meet. The more of them we meet, the fewer our descendants will meet.