Alibaba Kicks Off Annual Philanthropy Event With New Interaction Channels

Alibaba Group started its sixth annual Philanthropy Week on Tuesday with a series of online and offline initiatives across its businesses and new ways for the public to participate. By introducing direct donation channels in collaboration with 40 public welfare organizations and launching a new interactive game, the company is making public welfare easier and more transparent.

Since the launch of its Philanthropy Week in 2017, Alibaba‘s charity platform has facilitated participatory philanthropy through different programs such as “Goods for Good” and “Three Hours for a Better World.” From ensuring nutritious meals reach impoverished children in China to promoting environmental awareness through recycling programs, those who wish to support such causes can do so easily through Alibaba’s many platforms and business units, including Taobao, Alipay, Alibaba Health, Ele.me, Cainiao Guoguo, Idle Fish and Amap.

This year’s Philanthropy Event, which lasts from August 30 to September 10, involves more public interaction. The Three Hours for A Better World program encourages young people to participate in diverse public welfare activities through the cultivation of “lovely beans”, which pronounces the same with idols in Chinese. Participants can join in various pan-charitable activities such as step donation, voice donation, and quiz answering to obtain a corresponding number of “lovely beans”. These beans can be donated to designated public welfare projects, providing operation and maintenance funds on playgrounds, football fields, and sports bags for rural children.

“Three Hours for A Better World” was launched in 2015 for all Alibaba employees to participate in philanthropy and the program was extended to the general public in 2017. During this year’s Philanthropy Week, Three Hours for A Better World became the first one authorized to trial individual charity accounts in China, promoting the construction of individual charity accounts for the whole society.

“The company’s expectations for the Philanthropy Week have not changed. We hope to promote the connection between people and encourage them to participate in charity. Charity does not mean that one person does a lot, but many people do a little together,” said Lijun Sun, Director-General of Alibaba Foundation.

Additionally, Alibaba has created a new direct donation channel for 107 quality charity projects together with 40 Chinese NGOs during this year’s Philanthropy Week. Different from the previous mode of making donating during the order transactions, this year both merchants and individuals can donate directly to selected charity projects, or they can launch “Donation Together,” encouraging others to make donations together through various media and social platforms.

According to an ESG report released by Alibaba at the end of last month, over the past 15 years from 2006 to 2021, more than 8 million merchants have participated in the “Goods for Good” program, with 47.3 billion orders channeling charitable proceeds to programs that have benefited 43 million people. In FY 2022 alone, the program saw more than 500 million consumers and 2.2 million merchants participating. In FY 2022, “Three Hours for a Better World” logged over 780 million charitable activities, among which more than 100 million driven by Gen-Z.

SEE ALSO: Alibaba Releases 2022 ESG Report, Cutting Carbon Emission by 620,000t Last Year

As a tech firm, Alibaba also leverages its technological innovations for social challenges and empowering charities with technology. Since 2016, the Reunion System helped build has sent out alerts for 5,038 missing children, and assisted in the recovery of 4,960 of them. By June 2022, more than 330 charitable organizations and more than 6,000 of our engineers have participated in Alibaba‘s “Green Code”, a platform to match tech volunteers with charitable projects.