Non-profit institutions have long been believed to significantly contribute to good governance practice, particularly in transitional or authoritarian countries. Nevertheless, there has been a lack of sufficient empirical evidence to support that claim. This article uses Vietnam as a case study to examine the linkage between a rising number of non-profit institutions and the improvement of good governance practice by analysing impacts of non-profit institutions’ development on government’s transparency at the provincial level from 2011 to 2014. To do so, the article employs pooled ordinary least squares, fixed effects and random effects models with different sets of control variables. On the basis of the quantitative results, we conclude that the rise of non-profit institutions does have a positive impact on the quality of governance in Vietnam, at least in terms of fostering its transparency.