On September 6, 2016, I happened to meet my old friend Mr. Wang Ming at the "World Philanthropy Forum - Future-oriented Social Value Investment Sub-Forum" at Tsinghua University. Wang Ming has a long reputation for studying NGOs in China, and I have been in contact with him for fifteen years, he is a professor at Tsinghua University and a director of our Youcheng. When he learned that I was now a member of the friendship, he excitedly said, "You are a veteran and a new soldier!" ”
"Veteran new soldier", now that I think back on this sentence, it is very appropriate to sum up the feeling of my eight-month work in Youcheng.
Social pioneer
Before joining Youcheng, I presided over the Beijing New Era Zhigong Education Research Institute for a long time, which is an NGO for nearly 20 years, whose direction is to promote social change through social innovation.
Founded on June 9, 1997, New Era is one of the earliest NGOs in China to engage in civic education. In order to promote civic education, it once made the earliest civic education website on the mainland, and also cooperated with the Workers' Daily to open a special page on civil society in the Workers' Daily. Around 2000, he also did a program on Beijing Radio dedicated to civic education. In later work, civic education has become the foundation of the new era project, because we recognize that as our understanding of the content of civic consciousness becomes richer and richer, the improvement of civic consciousness is fundamental to social change.
Beginning in 1999, the new era shifted its focus to urban and rural grassroots democratic autonomy. In 2000, the villagers' autonomy activities in Shayang, Hubei Province, were recognized by the Grass-roots Political Affairs Department of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and in 2002, with their help, our organization conducted the Beijing Jiudaowan Election, which is known as the "most influential urban community direct election". This election has a great impact and has completely laid the basic framework for urban community governance in China. The Jiudaowan election has attracted the attention of people from all walks of life at home and abroad who are concerned about China's social reform, CCTV has reported it many times, and other media reports are too numerous to count, and when the Secretary-General of the United Nations visited China that year, he also sent his wife to Jiudaowan to have a look.
As a result of the project, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Beijing Municipal Government also hosted an international seminar on community governance, where Wang and I were assigned to the same room. When we saw that the room number was "911", the two of us excitedly stayed up all night and talked all night to make friends. Later, we also did the election of industry committees, the election of district and county people's congress deputies, the reform of urban street offices, etc., among which the reform of Lugu in Shijingshan, Beijing was also awarded an innovation award by Yu Keping.
From 2003 to 2013, the new era focused its main work on the research of resolving social conflicts and resolving social mass incidents through social innovation. From 2006 to 2007, in Rongcheng, Hebei Province, the conflict incident caused by land acquisition was investigated, and a cross-border combination and consultation dialogue were formed to resolve social conflicts, which changed the situation of single subjects and outdated methods in the process of handling mass incidents.
Since 2013, we have focused our main energy on the experiment of regional governance, proposing a path of promoting social change through civic education, social cultivation, and governance innovation under the banner of ecological civilization construction.
Friendship into a new warrior
In July 2016, I officially joined Youcheng and went from being a social innovation veteran to a new fighter.
The first time I heard about Youcheng was from Xie Changkui. Xie Lao participated in revolutionary work as early as before the founding of New China, and then became the founder of China Youth Daily, and later he has been doing youth research work, entering the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences from the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League in the 1980s to study youth sociology, and once served as the president of the Chinese Youth Sociological Society.
I can't remember the specific time Elder Xie first mentioned Youcheng to me, but I remember him saying: "There is a female comrade named Wang Ping, who is very idealistic, very capable, very spiritual, set up a foundation, support social welfare, and have the opportunity to introduce you to the understanding later." ”
The first time I met the chairman, the specific time is not clear, it was at a meeting held by Youcheng and collaborator Li Tao, I remember that the chairman and Yu Keping and Li Qiang were the keynote speakers at that meeting. The biggest impression left on me by the chairman of the board was the spiritual temperament, the kind of big husband who did not let Su Mei make me feel excited, and MengFuzi's spirit of giving up on me suddenly pounced on me.
After a brief exchange with the chairman, it seems that the chairman arranged for Wenwen to contact me and give me the collection of essays and yearbooks published by Youcheng, and since then I have been able to receive emails from Youcheng.
Through understanding and research, it is recognized that Youcheng has become the standard-bearer of social innovation in Chinese mainland, and Youcheng not only translated and published a series of social innovation books together with the Central Compilation Bureau, but also co-created Youcheng University with Tsinghua University to cultivate young leaders for social innovation.
Youcheng is an organization that combines knowledge and action, and in the Wenchuan disaster relief, it not only put forward the "first time", "first scene" and "first need", but also established a "collaboration platform" to become an innovative model in earthquake relief. I remember visiting a disaster relief NGO in Sendai, Japan, in 2014, one of their leaders said that their approach was to learn from the experience of the Youcheng Collaboration Platform, which was transmitted to Japan through exchanges with the Nippon NPO Center.
On the road of social innovation, Youcheng has gone through the stage of introduction and imitation, and formed its own unique core competitiveness, that is, the social innovation ecology proposed by the chairman of the board of directors with social value as the guide and the three A and three forces as the evaluation standard.
Specifically, it is three ones: "advocate a consensus: abandon the debate of ism, focus on social issues; stop the struggle between left and right, and return to social values." Lead the development model and commercial value with social value. Establish a standard: abandon the outdated development concept of measuring everything with economic indicators, and develop the three A and three force evaluation standards for the social value of governments, enterprises and organizations to guide social development. Create an ecosystem: government, industry, academia, research, media, social, cross-border cooperation of social innovation ecology. ”
Perhaps, this is the charm of Youcheng! Therefore, when I entered Yusei in 2016, without any hesitation or wandering, I changed from a veteran to a new soldier!
As a member of Youcheng, I think the first is to pay attention to cultivation, Youcheng is not an ordinary NGO, especially pay attention to the inheritance of the Chinese spirit, pay attention to the cultivation of employees. In fact, Youcheng's monday morning reading of "University" is a process of improving his self-cultivation, and in the recitation, the road of "Gewu Zhizhi Zhi
The second is to learn the method of social innovation, that is, the three A and three forces method created by the chairman of the board, which is a unique weapon for Youcheng to carry out social innovation, and it is impossible to imagine whether a warrior without weapons is not a qualified warrior.
The third is to have feelings, the family of the world, to the world as their own responsibility, to give up their own feelings who is to be a friend of adults, youcheng's social innovation is not only for the future of youcheng itself, because the fundamental gene of youcheng is the feeling of the world, is for the social fairness and justice of the whole world to have a friendship.
Since the establishment of the allies, I have participated in the establishment of the Youcheng Research Institute, participated in the research and development of the three A and three forces evaluation system (government version), participated in the preparation of the social innovation salon health care forum, participated in the inspection of the Yichang Ecological Civilization Construction Experimental Zone, and participated in the preparation of the Henan Xiuwu Ecological Civilization Construction Experimental Zone.
Youcheng Dacheng
Youcheng has been ten years old, Youcheng has grown from a seedling to a towering tree, becoming a leading town of social innovation in China, and today Youcheng has the ability to contribute to the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
So how can Youcheng go from initial success to Dacheng in the next decade?
To this, friends have their own answers. Because you know how to succeed, that is, the way to adhere to the three A and three forces, and pay attention to the unity of the three A and three forces. Three A three forces is actually a success formula:
Success = Driven (AIM) × Innovation (APPROACH) × Action
In this formula, every part is done well, and to achieve unity can be successful, because the multiplication of the three A's is the final result of success.
Specifically, Youcheng Dacheng needs the following three points:
First of all, hold high the banner of ecological civilization construction and unite friendship into a driving force.
Only by holding high the banner of ecological civilization can we clarify our driving force, solve who we are for, why we are doing Youcheng, and what our goal is.
I remember that after returning from Xiuwu last December, I wrote a small article in "Yubei Journey", in which I talked about my views, believing that the world is bidding farewell to industrial civilization and moving towards ecological civilization, the Chinese nation needs to be carefully polished to set a model for the world's ecological civilization, and Xiuwu may become a demonstration area for the construction of ecological civilization.
In January 2017, Jianguang and I went down to Xiuwu again, and reached a consensus on cooperation with the relevant leaders of Xiuwu to carry out experiments in ecological civilization construction and carry out three A and three forces assessment. On January 24, 2017, Jianguang and I made a complete report to the chairman of the board of directors, and also confirmed with Wang Yibing, chairman of the board of directors and executive director of the research institute, that Youcheng will hold high the banner of ecological civilization and increase research on the construction of ecological civilization.
Second, master the knowledge system of ecological civilization and improve the innovation ability of Youcheng.
In the past ten years, research and development, incubation and support have formed a huge system. It has not only developed a unique core product oriented to social value and social assessment as a tool, but also formed many new public welfare brands such as the Kitty Eagle Plan, E-commerce Poverty Alleviation, Evergreen Education, passers-by A, etc., and also formed a social value investment alliance. At present, Youcheng has formed three major clusters: Youcheng Research Institute, Youcheng New Public Welfare, and Youcheng Social Investment Alliance.
Youcheng has become a system, but the internal unity of the system is not enough, how to improve the unity? That is learning and training, one is to learn the knowledge system of ecological civilization, the formation of ecological civilization and various projects; the second is to carry out training, enhance the innovation of various departments and the cooperation between departments, so that youcheng form a fist attack, the ancients cloud "and the enemy has always been, a thousand miles to kill", so that you can concentrate on the advantages to play an overall role.
Finally, focus on building an ecological civilization and increasing its influence.
How to improve the influence, in addition to doing a good job of the project, increase publicity, but also should focus on the project. In the process of designing projects, Youcheng should pay attention to regionality, concentrate the project in the target area as much as possible, form the advantages of continuous and centralized "blasting", and form a group effect in a certain area. In this way, the influence of Youcheng will be concentrated, and the increase of influence on Youcheng and the formation of efficient social mobilization will have positive effects.
All the past is the prologue!
Looking forward to the future, If Youcheng has the banner of ecological civilization construction, if it can form all resources and projects into an organic whole, take the three A and three forces as a sharp weapon, and have a concentrated experimental area, we Will certainly be able to become the leader of social innovation in the process of ecological civilization construction!
People who have stepped through the green mountains are not old, and the scenery is good here!
Ten years, Youcheng has created its own scenery! In the next decade, the scenery of Youcheng will be even more dazzling! I have no doubt about this!
About the Author
Zhou Hongling
The Executive Deputy Secretary-General of Youcheng Research Institute, who has long been engaged in theoretical research and practical exploration in the field of governance, has a certain influence in social cultivation, grassroots governance and crisis governance, and is now presiding over the research and development of social values, three A and three forces (government version) and ecological civilization construction of the institute.