Philanthropy Advisor · Philosophy Student · Researcher
VisionA better world；A more altruistic life.
MissionSupport philanthropy practitioners；Generate a philosophy of giving.
ValuesReceive from the world；Return to the world；Strive for harmony.
My English name, Virtus, comes from the Latin tradition of virtue and excellence of character. It reflects an aspiration to practise prudence, justice, temperance, and courage.
I entered philanthropy at the age of seventeen. Since then, most of my study and work have stayed close to this field. I build ideas and produce knowledge, while working with people focused on specific issues and topics to bring this knowledge and experience into practice.
I am interested in classical virtue ethics, contemporary virtue ethics, applied ethics, philanthropy advisory, philosophical practice, public value creation, and the good life. I support practical action within the organizations and governance systems of contemporary philanthropy. I also study how practitioners form more ethical and sustainable ways of acting in real social, organizational, and personal settings, and how they can balance public value creation with the pursuit of their own good life.
The name draws on Aristotle's ideas of telos and agathon in the Nicomachean Ethics. I understand it as “the purpose, completion, and fulfilment of the good.” It is the name of my studio. It reflects my belief that the good is worth pursuing, and my hope that it can gradually be realised in life, action, and the world.
This section records the projects I am currently involved in, studying through, publishing, or opening to others. They are ways of bringing philosophy, philanthropy, and public knowledge into learning, research, and public action.
Master's Study
In the 2026–2027 academic year, I am attending The Athens M.A. in Ancient Philosophy in Greece. The programme is jointly run by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, the University of Patras, and the University of Crete. It focuses on early Greek philosophy, Plato, Aristotle, Hellenistic philosophy, and late ancient philosophy, and includes a master's thesis during the summer.
Newsletter
Philanthropy Chronicle is run by an editorial team formed by Amity Foundation Chuanyi Fund. Each month, we record developments in Chinese philanthropy, revisit events from this month in philanthropic history, and compile and translate observations from the global field. The annual chronicle is included in the China Philanthropy Blue Book.
Program Evaluation
Since March 2025, I have worked on the evaluation as an evaluator and advisor contracted by the Beijing Empowering Center for Capacity Building and Evaluation. The program is funded by adidas, commissioned by Shengshi Baidai, and evaluated by Beijing Empowering. I took part in early discussions and now assess program outcomes. No public evaluation report is available at present.
Action Learning
I served as a group leader in the first cohort and as a teaching assistant in the second. Under the guidance of Alex Zeng, former General Manager of Apple China and a Vistage coach, the program used individual reading and reflection, group discussion, weekly follow-up, and full-group sessions.
My advisory practice is built for peers and institutional partners. It emphasizes problem clarification, field understanding, evidence awareness, ethical judgment, and usable organizational learning.
Assessing program goals, participant experience, implementation quality, and public value in ways that can inform decisions and communication.
Supporting funding decisions through theory of change, evidence, organizational capacity, risk, and ethical boundary analysis.
Helping donors and organizations move from intent to issue selection, portfolio design, partnership models, and long-term learning.
Turning lived realities, institutional values, and public participation into credible narratives without reducing them to attention tactics.
Strategy and Organizational Development
From September 2022 to August 2023, I worked on the program as a researcher at the Fujian Shancai Philanthropy Research Institute. I visited and supported more than 40 county-level nonprofits across Fujian and was the lead writer of several reports on governance and program evaluation. The evaluations used field visits, interviews, document review, logic models, and comparative methods. I also took part in action research and the writing of research outputs.
Strategy and Organizational Development
From March 2024 to March 2025, I served as Secretary-General. I helped build the fund's structure, conduct early research, design programs, and deliver them. During my term, the fund launched a community-based healthy ageing program through music education. It offered weekly in-person music classes and a community concert, alongside online courses and long-form video interviews with older adults.
Effective Grantmaking and Due Diligence
From August 2024 to February 2025, I worked as a grant officer. I managed applicant relationships through the CRM system for the second funding round, carried out pre-grant due diligence, and prepared materials for funding decisions. Across the grantmaking process, I conducted due diligence on 26 applicants, led the writing of three reports, and contributed to others. I also invited experts in public health, investment, and entrepreneurship to form an advisory panel for due diligence and funding decisions.
Effective Grantmaking and Due Diligence
From July 2017 to September 2022, I was a core team member. I worked on program design, organization, recruitment, teaching, field visits, and communication. In the student grant process, I visited every applicant's family to understand their circumstances and funding needs. I then joined the funding committee in making collective decisions. During this period, more than 2,200 students received grants or took part in teaching programs.
Program Design and Evaluation
From March to August 2025, I worked as a service-learning philanthropy advisor. I independently designed and delivered the service-learning part of the “Walk Among the Classics” international summer program at Sun Yat-sen University's Boya College. I supported students from several countries in combining public-interest English teaching, home visits, community research, and collaborative exhibition work in Langtou. During the same period, I advised a Zhejiang University student team on the online and in-person “Weimang” service-learning program in Wan'an, Jiangxi.
Public-interest Communication and Fundraising Strategy
From 2018 to 2022, I initiated the project and carried out field visits in Gansu, Qinghai, and other areas. I gathered stories, wrote fundraising proposals, produced videos, and approached funding partners and companies. I also organized volunteers for Tencent Charity's 99 Giving Day. The project ran four annual fundraising campaigns during this period and raised more than RMB 1 million in total.
Alongside project work, I continue to take part in action learning, leadership development, and professional training in philanthropy advisory. I have joined different learning communities as a participant, teaching assistant, group leader, coach, and volunteer.
Leadership
In May 2025, I completed all modules and 40 hours of the Aspire Leaders Program as a participant. The program was designed by Harvard Business School professors and Aspire Institute co-founders Tarun Khanna and Karim Lakhani. I received a certificate of completion from Aspire Institute.
Philanthropy Advisory
I completed the foundation course in June 2024 and the intermediate course in October 2024, receiving certificates for both stages. The courses covered charitable organizations, business for good, charitable trusts, career development for philanthropy advisors, strategic philanthropy, and effective grantmaking. I later joined related activities and salons as a volunteer with the Shanjia Heritage Volunteer Team.
Action Learning
From 2022 to 2024, I joined three consecutive cohorts of the Fushi Lecture Hall run by Grand World Compassion (Taiwan) Foundation. I was both a teaching assistant and participant in the first cohort, a teaching assistant in the second, and a coach in the third. The program used action learning and focused on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
My research begins with practical questions from philanthropy and moves towards their ethical and philosophical foundations. As philanthropy becomes a professional field, how do actors understand the good, make judgments, and sustain action within organizational and institutional limits? How do practitioners, donors, beneficiaries, and professional organizations share roles and work together to create public value?
Community
Starting from specific social issues and fields of action, I study the development of philanthropy as a professional field, as well as the roles, cooperation, and responsibilities of practitioners, donors, beneficiaries, and professional organizations. Through continued observation and practice-based research, I ask how professional organizations develop, how different actors take part, and how public value is formed within a community.
Practice
Through the good life, virtue, practical wisdom, choice, and habit, I study how a person moves from knowing the good to practising it steadily, and how knowledge of the good gains practical force and gradually shapes action, character, and a way of life.
Way of Life
Starting from the idea of the Non-profit Person (NPP), I study how actors form ethical judgments among organizational limits, professional roles, and personal values. I also explore whether altruistic action can become part of a whole life, and whether personal flourishing can work together with the creation of public value for others and the community.
Through ancient Greek philosophy and related contemporary research, I further examine the links between philosophical argument, ethical training, and everyday life. I am interested in how philosophy can help actors examine and shape their own lives.
Journal Article
Co-authored with Jia Xijin, Associate Professor at Tsinghua University. Published in the CSSCI-indexed China Nonprofit Review, Volume 35, Issue 1 (2025). The paper was also presented in the Public Value and Ethics section of the second Tsinghua China Nonprofit Academic Forum.
Liu, Yan, and Jia Xijin (2025). “Public Value Creation and the Pursuit of the Good Life from an NPP Perspective — Action Research Based on Philanthropy Advisory Practice.” China Nonprofit Review, 35(1), 287–301.Book
I co-wrote the introduction and three case studies in Chapter Five, turning experience from county-level nonprofit development into an action research text.
View Project and Publication IntroductionPaper
Using CiteSpace, I mapped Chinese academic research on public-interest communication from 1993 to 2022. The work became my undergraduate thesis and a review of the field.
2025 China Philanthropy Blue Book
This report will be published in the 2025 China Philanthropy Blue Book. I co-wrote it with two researchers. It reviews philanthropy across the world and Asia, with country studies on the United States, the United Kingdom, and Singapore, as well as themes including climate, international development aid, and artificial intelligence.
China Philanthropy Blue Book
I co-wrote the 2023 and 2024 annual reports of Philanthropy Chronicle. The 2023 report was published in the 2024 China Philanthropy Blue Book, and the 2024 report will be published in the 2025 China Philanthropy Blue Book.
Philosophical Practice
Initiated by Professor Liang Zhonghe of Sichuan University, the group held two series of public readings. It brought philosophical texts, especially classical texts, into public spaces so that participants could examine confusion and restlessness in contemporary life and move closer to wisdom. The first series read Nishida Kitarō's An Inquiry into the Good. The second read Pierre Hadot's The Wisdom of Ancient Philosophy, led by me. The activity has now ended.
Please briefly introduce the context, the question you are facing, and what you hope we might consider or move forward together.
ly056015@hotmail.com LinkedIn / virtusl