Whenever someone hears the story of Encore.org Purpose Prize winner Jenny Bowen, they have two reactions: Wow! and How?

Perhaps you’ve read about abhorrent conditions in China’s orphanages, or seen the international documentaries that embarrassed the Chinese government. Perhaps you’ve also read that the country’s orphanage system is improving, dramatically.

Bowen and Half the Sky, the organization she founded, are in large part responsible for that improvement. Who could have predicted that an American woman with limited experience in foreign affairs or in child care could engineer manage such profound change in China?

Bowen wrote about the experience in a wonderful, at times heart-rending, new book: Wish You Happy Forever: What China’s Orphans Taught Me About Moving Mountains. You can read an excerpt here. Half the Sky provides model programs and caregiver training to those caring for China’s orphans. Starting from scratch in the late 1990s, with enormous obstacles in her way, Bowen persevered to the point where China’s topmost leaders now embrace Half the Sky. Orphanages that are home to 100,000 children have been transformed from little more than holding pens to nurturing facilities that would pass muster in any developed nation.

There’s still a long way to go: 100,000 is only 10 percent China’s orphanage population. But, Bowen says, China’s commitment and direction are now clear: “They’re highly unlikely to go back into the darkness again.”

We caught up with the former screenwriter and filmmaker on a book tour stop in Portland, Ore., to ask how her former career influenced her awesome second act.

“I learned a lot from film production,” she says. “I learned how to raise money. I learned how to pitch ideas. I learned how to cast.”

Those skills came in handy. Bowen and her husband are parents of two adopted Chinese girls. But when she started her campaign, Bowen knew practically no one with political clout in China.

Nonetheless, she moved ahead willfully, armed with her film production skills. The choice of the first orphanages to be remade with the help of Half the Sky would make or break her efforts, she knew. She needed early success. Casting was crucial. In her film career, had developed a sense for character, and applied it when choosing the first orphanage directors to work with.

Same with picking the facilities themselves, an experience she likened to location scouting: “I had to pick the sites with the best chance of success.”

Long experience with the everyday disappointments that accompany any film production saved her from disillusion. “I got really good at dealing with adversity, because when you’re in production you’re dealing with nothing but.”

The book chronicles a never-give-up attitude and “offers living proof that totally unqualified ordinary people are capable of making a big difference,” Bowen says, “Although that’s not a message I intended when I wrote it.”

Her work, she says, offered benefits she didn’t imagine when she began. “I’ve learned just how fundamental it is for all children, not just orphans in China, to be nurtured and loved. Not just your own children, but your enemies’ children, children on the other side of the world, children you will never know.”