Our second post from contributing blogger Carla Fernandez, who wrote about social entrepreneur Steve Koon in August.

Image via Social Venture Group

As China’s grassroots nonprofit sector gradually develops, the age-old question that plagues the industry worldwide sharpens in focus: Where can these nascent Chinese nonprofits secure funding to get the ball rolling and to keep their operations afloat?

That’s where Shanghai-based Social Venture Group comes into play.  SVG is developing a crucial link in the nonprofit chain, connecting foundations, corporations and individual donors to stand-out Chinese nonprofits. Their main mission is to build a community of investors in–or interested in–China, who “share a vision for investing in social causes of the 21st century.”  By making philanthropy easy (SVG does all the due diligence) and effective (through their nonprofit capacity building efforts), SVG hopes to increase the amount and the impact of philanthropy in China.  Most donors are on the prowl for education or children-related organizations to support, and SVG has already developed projects with China’s only orphanage for the blind and with teachers who work with autistic children.

SVG is a go-between for charities and donors, a cutting-edge resource for nonprofits, and a professional and trustworthy face for the Chinese nonprofit sector.  Most of all, SVG embodies the spirit of innovation that has the potential to transform China’s social issues from the grassroots up.

(Photo courtesy of The Library Project)

A letter from Tom Stader of The Library Project, an initiative that has helped establish 20 libraries in rural elementary schools throughout China.

“Over the past three months The Library Project created twenty libraries in rural elementary schools throughout China. More than thirty thousand books were donated with each school receiving a wide range of high quality children’s books including: history, science, short stories, fairy tales, reference books and comics. We also provided a full set of children’s encyclopedias for older students and pinyin language books for the kids beginning to learn to read. The Library Project also provided colorful child-safe tables and chairs, posters and a world globe to all the classrooms and library rooms.

These fabulous new libraries are located throughout China in the countrysides of Xi’an, Yanliang, Dalian, Lvshun, Jinan, and Changchun. At each site, The Library Project held book drives, which collected over twenty thousand quality second-hand books from local donors. We also purchased over ten thousand first-hand books from Xin Hua Books Stores at just $1 a book.

In addition to books and supplies, the school librarians received training on how to manage their new library. Since most rural elementary schools have never had a single book in their library for children to read, our Librarian Training Program gets them up to speed on day one.

….

We need your help.

There are three ways to get involved:

Help by spreading the word. You can forward this newsletter to your friends, family members and coworkers. Make a post on your MySpace page, blog to help raise awareness for The Library Project, or join our Facebook Group by clicking here. You can also host a small event at your home, work or at a local restaurant with a goal of raising enough money to provide fifty, two hundred or five hundred books for the children of a rural elementary school. If you need help organizing a fundraiser, please contact me anytime at tom@library-project.org. Thank you!

Help by volunteering. You can make a huge difference in the lives of countless children in the developing world by becoming a volunteer. There are so many different ways to volunteer: you can throw a wine tasting or dinner to introduce The Library Project to others, hang a poster above the water cooler at your office, or introduce us to your company’s HR Department.

Help by making a donation. Without money, we can’t buy books. At a dollar a book, most of us can afford to buy 10, 20 or even 100 books. Make a donation and help bring the gift of education to countless children. Our libraries generally contain about 500 - 1000 books, thus every donated book (or dollar) helps!”

Read the entire WINTER NEWSLETTER here.

You can also listen to this podcast from the China Business Network to learn more about the organization’s efforts.