During a forum on online platforms for public fundraising held a few days ago, the Vice-Minister of Civil Affairs Wang Aiwen revealed that over the first half of 2019, the 20 official platforms for online public fundraising designated by the Ministry of Civil Affairs published over 17,000 request for fundraising for more than 1400 charities. Netizens clicked, followed and otherwise reacted to these solicitations a total of 5.26 billion times, and the total amount of money raised was in excess of 1.8 billion Yuan.
These figures suggest that the future trend for online donations in China is still a rosy one. In the first half of 2018 total donations made through the designated platforms were 980 million Yuan, only slightly more than half of this year’s figure. It should also be noted that donations in the second half of the year tend to be much larger, due to the impact of Tencent’s extremely popular 9/9 Charity Day.
Yesterday’s news report on this topic by Beijing Normal University’s China Philanthropy Research Institute reveals some interesting facts about online donations. According to data relevant to the Ant Financial Charity Platform, which is owned by tech giant Alibaba and operates through Alipay, China’s most popular app for mobile payments alongside WeChat, those who donate online are overwhelmingly young people. Over the first half of the year, 9% of donors were born in the 70s, 35% were born in the 80s, and 48% were youngsters born in the 90s. Proportions are a bit less skewed when it comes to the amount of money donated, with those born in the 70s donating 21% of the total, people born in the 80s donating 45%, and people born in the 90s donating only 26%, reflecting perhaps young people’s inferior spending power.
More interesting figures relevant to Ant Financial’s platform are that 47% of donors live in small cities that are considered to be lower than “third-tier” or in the countryside; 95% of donations are smaller than 1 Yuan; and 98% of donations went towards poverty alleviation and helping the needy (扶贫帮困).
