It’s indeed pleasure today to be here with you to share this very important conference.In moving over to China，it occurs to me that it would be the most important move in my 25-year professional history with Special Olympics.

Special Olympics is an international and national governing organization，which was founded in 1968 by Eunice Kennedy Shriver，the sister of former President Kennedy of USA.She is probably more recognized now as the mother in law of the governor Arnold Schwazenegger of California.Special Olympics is now a global organization that operates in 160 countries around the world and serves over 1 million athletes.

Our mission is very simple.It’s to provide sports training and athletic competition to children and adults with mental retardation.So we were very delighted when Special Olympics international decided to put a regional office here in Beijing to create what we have termed a great joint venture with Special Olympics China.

Sometimes when I am speaking to business community，you get some smiles，a little bit like the laugh，when you talk about the NGO and their partner，Special Olympics China，as a joint venture.So many times nurtures up this idea that it is a business，but it was very important to Special Olympics China to be looked at as a business.We were working not only as an NGO trying to create a world for the very specific demographic here in China，but we are working as a business.Our joint venture is looked very seriously as a business.When we started our joint venture，we decided we were going to articulate our goals very clearly，very concisely and very strongly.We narrow them down into 3 major goals.

Those goals are being to raise the number of persons with intellectual or mental disability in this country being provided the services in Special Olympics from 25，000 and within 5 years reach 500，000 people around the country.The second thing was to create new programs to introduce new sports to individuals for disabilities，to revive awareness building activities through educational projects，to create new projects in terms of health，all these projects were going to reach our goals with 500，000 athletes.And the third was to contribute to massive attitudinal change about the people with intellectual disability here in China.We felt very strongly that the long term sustainability of our program belong to the legacy of our program，relied on our program helping change the attitudes of the general public about the people with disability and people with mental retardation.

I can report you today that after a year and half our joint venture is successful.I can give you a quick shareholders report，our profit，our bottom line.The number of the athletes in one year has raised 38%.After several years，we now serve over 178，000 people from the base line in our program.

We have been increased the new researching program.We have launched a program in the regular education schools with the help of the Administration of Education.It targeted young children without mental retardation.Four simple lessons do this.The first lesson talks to them about the understanding differences，how you differentiate people who are older than you，how differentiate people who have different religions with you，how differentiate people who have different intellectual capacity with you.The second lesson focuses on understanding people who have disabilities and how they are more similar than differences.The third lesson focuses on more people with intellectual disabilities about Special Olympics.Last one is called action to actually volunteer to do something.So the project like this is slowly helping us achieve our goals of reaching new athletes，developing new programs in creating massive attitudinal change.

We could not be successful without looking at our corporate partners.In part of our work here，we get strong affiliation with corporations.I was very impressed about what Victoria talked about the smile train.Her presentation showed that they were the business.It looks very clearly at what the outside，the general public，other corporations want to see from their organization.The next speaker Kelly will talk to you what corporations expect on how they work with organizations in terms of the corporate social responsibility.

So we looked out when we want to do our joint venture and introduce it to the business community.We found there were 5 areas that corporations were really looking to us to set the example：one，the business said we wanted to join hands with corporation or organization or NGO which is credible，we tried to do that with our long standing credibility with Special Olympics，we are named as the most credible charity in USA.We have partnered with friends，like China Charity Federation and Mr.Yan Mingfu，who was their former Chairman and now is the Chairman of the Special Olympics.

We were told we had to be transparent.It is that we worked to local Special Olympics programs around the world.We have been very strict and very open about the fact that they have to be very transparent in everything from finance，their work and reporting.Transparency is a very big thing for the corporations.

Public relation is a big thing.We went to that question as we created massive attitudinal change，we have to do things that are going to open publics eyes.It is very important for corporations to stand side by side with us，and be the partner in changing the attitude and at the same time getting the benefit back from the relationship with us.It was a business partnership with relationship.We will not just going without our hands and running away with the money.It was the way for them to come with us step by step about the campaign to alert the public what we are doing and the fact they are doing with us.

Victoria said that we had the economy around the world in many parts and even in China，the corporate community is tightening their belts.It’s hard for them to come to give their major gifts，to just give the money and then walk away.We have tried to create the opportunities not only to give the publicity but also to work hand in hand with them to increase their sales as we increase our numbers.I will give you some examples on how we work with corporations to do that in a second.

The last but probably the most important one that people have told us that they wanted to give us the money with their employees involved.That was an interesting thing for us to work with our partners here in the local Special Olympics programs in special schools，is to introduce them to the fact that the corporations and communities would like to have volunteers working on a regular basis in their program.But there are something corporations felt very strongly about is their part of whole cooperate psyche and whole corporate social responsibility with the fact that their employees could be working together to support the charity.It helps us because again it gives us another lands on project and another piece of transparency about the projects.It is very important for our commitment to corporations as we join them together with our local programs.We focused on several strategies to bring corporations involved.The first and the probably easiest for us was to go after the corporations to provide in kind or donate the support for our work which really helps the bottom line.Two examples are News Corporation has donated the office space for us.Our offices are located in their Oriental Plaza.It doesn’t take too much scientific knowledge to understand what kind of gift that is for us to be having free office，use their conference room，the phone and fax without any cost.More importantly our relationship is developed.We were developing the Special Olympics program by putting it on networks.We have had the athletes highlighted on some of the programs，again helping us not only the bottom line in doing our work here but helping create massive attitudinal change.

We have also had incredible in kind support from Nike.Nike just donated close to one and half million US dollars worth of sports equipment.We are now giving them to schools around the country，who told us one of the major reasons is that they could not start a Special Olympics program as they didn’t have the uniforms，the equipment and the funds to support such a game.Nike is donating that and they are very consistent and focus on the basis.I will tell you one another，Myer Stella.We partner closely with BM as public relations firm who provided us an incredible amount of support in terms of our message and our vision for our organization.Something we couldn’t be afford to do right now，but it is very well connected with how the message in China.I think any of NGOs，especially the emerging NGOs.I can tell you that this partnering with Stella has been a part of incredible asset of the organization.The second is that we have gone after the corporation with very specific projects.We decided that in china，a very important partner for us was the teacher in schools around the country because they provide the day to day programming.We thought very strongly that the next generation of the physical education teachers and special education teachers were going to be the workers to help us expand the programs，so we decided to introduce the curriculum in major education universities around China.It is not going to introduce those new teachers to Special Olympics but to special worker working with people who have the intellectual disabilities.And also to create centers of activities around the universities where athletes could come up to participate.

We received a very significant donation from the corporation to do our work around the country，also from JP Morgan Chase to help us with the specific projects.We also are working to try to work with corporations who want to increase their sales.An organization like the Special Olympics，which is starting to build their ability here，can be very big or we called cost related partner.We are starting to work closely with our global partners like Coca-Cola，Kodak，etc，to create ways we would co-promote the sales of their products to support specific projects here in China.

In the United State，one of the biggest contributors to Special Olympics is direct solicitation of individuals.We do a lot of direct mail where we mail to households around the United States and ask for contributions.It’s not something that is done，it is disappointed in China.But we felt that with a numbers of people here we had to start doing something where we could look at small individual donations sustaining our program.So we have now begun a series of pilot task with SMS，messaging，using the telephone or other vehicles to donate to our charity.We are also developing some other options for direct solicitation of individuals.I would like to pause here to show you a brief video from one of our recent events which are world games.It just occurred in Dublin，Ireland.I want to show this for the purpose and then come back and briefly conclude with some comments on activities like our world games.

I will conclude by saying why we show that.Because I think all of things we talked about is very important for NGOs to do and to know and to understand.It’s also very important that events drive the movement.The events such as our world games，national games here in China，local games of local Special schools here in Beijing drive the movement because they give us，the general public，and the contributor the opportunity to see，touch，feel，take part in your organization.

I am also credibly honored to tell you that for the first time in the history of our movement，the next summer Special Olympic game will be held in Shanghai China in 2007 and the first time we have ever been in the same country as Olympics and paralympics.This gives us the incredible public relation tool to work forwards 2007 when I believe my counterparts，Special Olympics China，will shock the world in terms what this country is doing for people with mental disability.Thank you！