From China Watch (link):
Few fledgling nongovernmental organizations can claim the kind of success that Beijing-based Global Environmental Institute (GEI) has enjoyed: an operating budget of half a million dollars, a board comprised of internationally prominent environmental professionals, an impressive portfolio of projects, and even a spin-off organization. Given all this, it’s hard to believe that GEI is a Chinese NGO, or that it’s only two years old.
GEI operates with a degree of familiarity and political know-how typically found in more seasoned organizations”experience that can be attributed to its founder, Jin Jiaman. When Jin co-founded her first organization, Green Earth Volunteers, in 1996, NGOs were just starting to appear in China. Many of these first-generation groups”such as Green Earth Volunteers and Friends of Nature”focused on environmental education, working to raise public awareness of China’s environmental problems. These pioneering NGOs were the first to test the waters and took care not to operate too far outside the bounds of public awareness campaigns.
