{"id":345,"date":"2022-07-24T10:47:58","date_gmt":"2022-07-24T10:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/editor.pimglobal.org\/?p=345"},"modified":"2023-08-29T13:22:08","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T13:22:08","slug":"blockchain-gamification-and-innovation-in-chinas-largest-charity-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/editor.pimglobal.org\/blockchain-gamification-and-innovation-in-chinas-largest-charity-day\/","title":{"rendered":"BLOCKCHAIN, GAMIFICATION, AND INNOVATION IN CHINA\u2019S LARGEST CHARITY DAY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
On September 9, teachers, students, and other volunteers in Samen County in the coastal Chinese province of Zhejiang launched coordinated peer-to-peer fundraisers aimed at building a more vibrant hometown library in their community. They raised RMB 40 million (nearly USD 6 million) in four hours from 2,850 netizens, most of them inspired by this effort to make an impact on education in Samen County. These volunteers and citizens in Samen County were not alone. It was one of just over 10,000 projects participating in Tencent\u2019s 9.9 Charity Day across China, which raised over RMB 3 billion (more than USD 430 million) through nearly 600 million individual donations over a period of three days. Although the country is still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, 9.9 donations increased 20% year-on-year, showing that even in hard times, the public\u2019s willingness to contribute continues to grow. Often likened to \u201cGiving Tuesday\u201d in the United States, Tencent\u2019s 9.9 Charity Day campaign is not your regular fundraiser. It is a highly coordinated effort by this internet giant to leverage its billion-plus users and advanced technologies such as blockchain to build trust and accountability in China\u2019s emerging philanthropic sector. This is critical in a society where the social sector has long struggled to gain broad traction. When the 9.9 Charity Day was first launched in 2015, it entered a philanthropic sector in which nearly 70% of charitable donations came from corporations, and were mostly directed at \u201cGONGOs\u201d (government-organized NGOs). The public largely stayed away, wary of highly publicized scandals and skeptical of such non-commercial motivations.Behind the success of the 9.9 Charity Day is a remarkable effort on the part of this internet company to innovate around public engagement for the social sector. In addition to rigorous vetting of organizations and financial transparency, the following are a few of the tools and methods Tencent deployed:1. Peer-to-Peer Fundraising or \u201cDonate Together\u201d<\/strong>: the platform has a \u201cDonate Together\u201d function that allows anyone to start a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign to support any of the 10,000 vetted charity projects. The donations that your friends give to your campaign will be tallied separately from the broader fundraiser for the charity, so that you can see how much you raised. While peer-to-peer fundraising is available on certain nonprofit fundraising platforms in the West, the ease at which fans and supporters can spontaneously start their own campaign through one click of a button in the 9.9 Charity Day Event is unparalleled. Peer-to-peer fundraising is particularly important in an environment where trust for organizations is low, and donations are primarily driven by social capital and relationships \u2013 the Chinese are more likely to donate to organizations that their trusted peers recommend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n