Abstract: In the context that the power of government alone is not enough to deal with fre quent public crises, taking "5·12" Wenchuan earthquake for example, it shows the non-governmental organizations- own characteristics and performance in the earthquake, revealing Chinese non-governmental organizations-s advantages, such as affinity, flexibility, professionalism and fairness, and the handicaps about legal, institutional, financial, cultural aspects in the process of public cris is management. The paper puts forward measures and suggestions to enhance the ef fective participation of non-governmental organizations in public crisis manage ment.