By Zhang Liang & Wang Weijin, Research Institute of Public Administration and Human Resources, DRC; Li Jian, Beijing Society for CPC Building Studies

Research Report, No.297, 2021 (Total 6362) 2021-10-14

Abstract: Charitable contributions are regarded as an important approach to bringing third distribution into play. China’s charitable contributions have grown steadily in terms of the total amount, with cash and securities taking up the lion’s share plus an increasing number of material donations. Enterprises boast the major entity in charitable contributions, while personal donations have ramped up. Foundations, charity societies and governmental organizations are the main recipients of the contributions, and seventy per cent of the donations are channeled into the fields of education, poverty alleviation and development as well as health care. Meanwhile, it needs to be noted that some issues remain to be addressed. For instance, people’s awareness on charity cause is still weak, incentive measures for making contributions are insufficient, the distribution of the contributions are inadequate, the use of the contributions is not transparent and contribution supervision system is incomplete. We need to create a positive environment where people are willing to make donations, enhance preferential tax policies on charitable contributions, make charitable contributions more open and transparent, strengthen usage censorship of the contributions and improve legislative regulations for charitable contributions in a bid to better leverage the role of charitable contributions in promoting shared prosperity for all.

Keywords: charitable contributions, philanthropy, third distribution, information disclosure