The Development Of Crowdfunding For China’s Public Charity

During three decades after the application of Reform and Opening-up Policy,restructuring of Chinese modern enterprises has been fundamentally accomplished, afast-pace of economic structural transformation, however, has relatively lagged socialstructural transformation behind, which has highlighted social contradictionsincreasingly. Public welfare establishments in China have also gradually beentransformed from government-leading, instruction-distributed, and excessivelypoliticalized and planned ones into more social, voluntary, and de-administrative civilbenefits. It becomes a core topic that how modern public organizations evolve to civilbenefits. On March5th2015, in the3rdmeeting of the12thNational People·s Congress,Premier Li Keqiang proposed an action plan of the Internet+·in his government workreport, which actually is about a new form and new operation on the Internet under thedevelopments of Innovation2.0·, and it is also an evolutionary form on the Internetunder the push of Knowledge Society Innovation2.0·.As an incoming of KnowledgeSociety, the Internet+·is creating ubiquitous of innovations, and driving Innovation2.0·, which is characterized as User-Innovation, Open-Innovation, Public-Innovation,and Collaborative-Innovation, to alter the ways of our production, work, and living ina whole-society scale, and it is leading the innovation-drivendevelopments of theNewNormal·. Public-interest Crowd-funding can precisely become one of the importanttools of public organizations and positively play a part in as a New Normal·.Public benefits and Crowd-funding are corresponded to each other naturally. Bymind identifying, both of them are able to bring forces and resources together, andachieving dreams. The prosperity of socialized media and the emergence of web portal and network platform are transforming our life-style, and simultaneously changingdevelopment patterns of public-benefit charity. Also, as improving in the mode ofpayment: from traditional cash to Bank Transfer, and to today·s Third-Party Payment,and the establishments and advancements of diverse donation platforms on the Internet;all of them contribute to a huge convenience of social participation into public benefits.Traditional ways of making donation has been fade-out, and its position have beenreplaced by Public-benefit Crowd-funding and other neoteric and fashionable ways ofraising funds, which cleaves capacious of development space for public organizations.In this context, numerous of middle and small-sized public organizations turnthemselves to the Internet Crowd-funding platforms, and compete for a space in themarket through the Internet; and this brings more furious market-oriented competitionsamong all public benefit establishments. Collecting tiny strength together and create aPublic-benefit Age that the entire people are able to participate in is where the generaltrend lies in.As a newly emerged mode of raising funds for public-interest programs, Public-benefitCrowd-funding is able to promote the interactions between donors and fund-raisers,which could establish a closer connection between the public-interest programs andparticipants themselves. That helps in terms of enhancing the property of individualinvolvement, and public-interest industry·s self-management, technical abilities suchas supports and services; and that plays a significant role in promoting market-orientedreforms within the public-benefit industry system in China. Having already expandedthe breadth of ordinary bodies· involvement in financial issues and public-benefitsestablishments, and given expression to the values of universal benefits; it has alsointensified the depth of individual involvements, and facilitated an equal, free, andcollaborative spirit of contracts between program initiators and investors. Thence,social values have been motivated, and a more open, flatter, and de-centralized networksociety and a rough sketch of economy are on display. This essay sets Public-benefits Crowd-funding as study object, and aims at theneeds of integrating the developments of the Public-benefits Crowd-funding in Chinawith the practical situation that the industry is still in a beginning stage. Byinvestigating and surveying on the public information from all large Public-benefitsCrowd-funding Internet platforms in China, this essay conducts a comprehensiveresearch on the developments of Public-benefits Crowd-funding. This essay is dividedinto five sections: First (Section I) states the research background and significance ofthe task, and tidy the relevant literatures both at home and abroad by listing main ideasfrom contemporary academic researches on this topic. Section II provides aninterpretation for the concept and basic theory of Public-benefits Crowd-funding; andit compares and contrasts between Public-benefits Crowd-funding and traditionalonline donation services. Section III sets the public information, which can be gainedfrom Public-interest Column in domestic online Crowd-funding platforms as well assome professional Public-benefits Crowd-funding websites, as basic data to beresearched on; and it also analyses all elements in Public-benefits Crowd-fundingcategorically, and expound its development status. It indicates the prospect of Crowd-funding, and considers the platform of comprehensive Public-benefits Crowd-fundingas a main force to drive the market of it. Section IV analyses the advantages of Public-benefits Crowd-funding, and it thinks that this funding form could lowering the barriersof public participation, and offer fund-raising channels to public-interest practices fromindividuals and grass-root organizations; besides, participants· enthusiasm has beenboosted by projecting neoteric programs. Public-benefits Crowd-funding could upliftthe capacity of public-interest organizations, and promote the standardization,marketization, and transparency in the industry. This section, meanwhile, analyses thechallenges that the industry faces in current China·s context: the existence of defaultrisk from project sponsors might challenge the credibility of public-interest industry;fund cost of Public-benefits Crowd-funding is relatively higher than traditional methods of donating; in addition, this kind of funding involves with a mass scale ofraising money from the public, it therefore has some conflicts against the laws that arecurrently in effect. Thereafter, aiming at these relevant problems and challenges, thisessay raises up correspondent countermeasures: it expects Public-benefits Crowd-funding industry to enhance self-regulations and industry supervisions; accelerating thepaces of establishing related laws and regulations is needed; it expects Civil Affair andother government departments, which are directly in charge of public-interest activities,could pay enough concerns on the developments of this industry, and guide theestablishments of relevant industrial standard as well as the laws and regulations. Atthe same time, it expects that Public-benefits Crowd-funding could embrace a betterprogress with the huge background that national social credit system has been graduallyconstructed and developed. Section V summarizes the whole essay and looks forwardto the future researches.