The fifth edition of Tencent’s 9/9 Charity Day, which officially ended on the 9th of September, has yet again broken all records for its scale and the amount of funds raised. The three-day annual event organized by the Shenzhen-based internet giant capitalises on people’s readiness to donate small sums to charitable causes through their mobile phones. It has turned into the biggest opportunity of the year for Chinese charities to fundraise online, especially considering that around half of all online donations in China are made during the three days of the event.
The motto of this year’s 9/9 Charity Day was “Do good things together” (一块做好事). According to official data from Tencent, from the 7th to the 9th of September more than 48 million individual donations from the public raised 1.783 billion yuan through Tencent’s public platform, and more than 2500 enterprises donated a further 307 million yuan. The Tencent Charity Foundation provided 399.99 million yuan in matching funds. Total donations were thus in the order of 2.490 billion yuan.
Not only has the amount of donations continued to increase over the five years that the 9/9 Charity Day has been held, but this year’s growth can be considered particularly explosive. The debut in 2015 raised 127.9 million yuan, the 2016 edition raised 300 million, and the third edition in 2017 raised 1.3 billion. Last year’s Charity Day raised 1.4 billion, “only” 100 million more than the previous year, giving many the impression that a peak in the quantity of donations had been reached. What’s more, donations from the general public stayed practically the same over 2017-2018, while most of the growth was due to increased donations from enterprises.
This year however Tencent’s Charity Day registered huge growth once again, raising almost 2.5 billion yuan in donations compared to last year’s 1.4 billion. Donations by private individuals have also increased dramatically, with almost 1.8 billion yuan raised as compared to last year’s 830 million. Tencent’s official press release credits, among other things, the active involvement of Tencent’s huge ecosystem of apps and products (including QQ, WeChat Pay, Tencent News, qcloud and more) for the Charity Day’s increasing success.
