The Evolution
of the Fund
A Glimpse at
Guizhou Province
Education
in Rural China
The Fund at Work
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Fund Management
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Fund Management
The Gwen Moore Children of China Fund is a donor-advised fund that is guided by its founder, Gwen Moore, and by a four-woman Advisory Board. Program management and administration are provided by Give2Asia, a non-profit organization founded by The Asia Foundation in 2000 to promote and facilitate philanthropy.
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The Founder. In 1996, Gwen Moore established the Gwen Moore Children of China Fund after reading a New York Times article about the plight of poor children and peasant women in remote areas of rural China. Since then, the Fund has provided over 1,000 poor children with scholarships so that they can get a basic education. The Fund has also sponsored literacy programs for peasant women, giving 100s of them the gift of reading, writing, and skills for better coping with the challenges of daily life. |
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In 1997, Gwen resigned her partnership at Accenture (formerly called Andersen Consulting) to attend Harvard Divinity School. In 2000, she received a Master of Divinity degree from the Harvard. She also holds degrees from the University of Massachusetts (M.Ed., research and statistics, 1976; MBA, business policy, 1978).
Gwen moved to Maine in 2001, and she devotes most of her time to managing the Fund. She also serves on the Board of Directors of Androscoggin Bank and chairs the Bank’s MainStreet Foundation. Periodically, she undertakes focused consulting projects with leaders of nonprofit organizations and small businesses to help them create and implement effective strategies for growth and change.
The Advisory Board. By 2007, the size of the Fund and the complexity of its operations had grown to such an extent that Gwen created an Advisory Board. Gwen said, “I desperately needed a sounding board, a forum to discuss how the Fund could best continue to serve the needs of children and peasant women in rural China.” The purpose of the Advisory Board is to help guide the Fund’s fiscal and program activities and shape long-term goals. Gwen invited four diverse and talented women to join the Advisory Board.
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Margaret Broaddus is a seasoned fundraiser who has helped cultural and social service agencies and universities. She is presently a senior gifts officer at Bowdoin College in Maine. Asked to comment on what she likes about being on the Board, Margaret said she "has enjoyed getting to know the other members. We all come from different perspectives but we all have one goal, which is to make sure ‘Gwen’s Fund’ survives all of us!" |
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Following a long career in human resource management, Peggy Brown recently completed a masters degree in social work and has begun a new career in clinical social work at the Ho spice of Good Shepherd near Boston. On her role with the group, Peggy said, "I was honored to be asked to serve on the board and excited to be involved with the recent positive changes that have taken place. I look forward to continuing to support the Fund’s good work with some of the most impoverished people in the world." |
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Sharon Frederick is an accomplished free-lance writer, editor, and communications manager. She is also a docent at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. "I had the good fortune to live and work in Asia for nearly 5 years and during that time traveled with Gwen to meet some of the children being helped by the Fund," Sharon says. "The experience was almost overwhelming: the children and their teachers walked miles to meet us because rain prevented us from driving to them. The children were so grateful for the Fund’s help and so proud to be attending school. That experience showed me just how great the need is and how much can be accomplished with our relatively small investment." |
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Jennifer Xu works for a non-profit economic development organization in Chicago and also serves as a member of the Chicago Sister Cities China Committee. The committee works to increase cross-cultural understanding and partnerships between Chicago and its sister cities in China. Jen was born in Guizhou Province and raised in the United States. Jen has a special appreciation for life in rural China. "When I was 14, my father took me to a very poor village in Guizhou where I not only saw extreme poverty, but also profound kindness, simplicity and hard work." From this grew her commitment to create educational opportunities in rural Guizhou. |
With Advisory Board members on both coasts, meetings are by phone. As Jen said to a friend of hers, "The truth is, we have never gathered together in one location and some of us have never even met face-to-face. Yet there was an immediate and shared recognition of what we must do in order to help the Fund continue to make a difference in the lives of people in rural China."
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Fiscal and Program Management is provided by Give2Asia (www.give2asia.org). Give2Asia operates much like a community foundation, helping donors focus on their objectives by providing program management and fund administration. The Children of China Fund relies on Give2Asia’s staff "on the ground" in China to organize and manage program efforts. Few places in the world have experienced and continue to experience change on the scale that China experiences. Our partnership with Give2Asia ensures that we can continue to respond to the changing situation in China, and those we serve, and do so with local resources who know the terrain—both figuratively and literally. |
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Copyright © 2008 Gwen Moore Children of China Fund. All Rights Reserved.