China’s First National Charity Fair to Open in 7 Days

The first national Charity Fair is to be held from July 12-14 in Shenzhen, China. The fair is jointly organized by several government entities from Ministry of Civil Affairs on a national level to Shenzhen Municipal Government on a local level, and assisted by a wide range of organizations from foundations, nonprofit organizations to corporations. The purpose of the Charity Fair is to provide a platform to showcase effective charitable programs and organizations, encourage open communications within and beyond the social sector and help increase understandings toward charity work from the public.

The theme of the fair is “Development, Integration and Transparency“, which is further elaborated as follows:

• Chinese charity sector is undergoing major development, and the overall trends are good. Challenges faced by the sector are inevitable in the process of fast development.
• Cross-sector collaboration is vital to the further development of Chinese charity; charity resources should be effectively integrated within the social sector to build a healthy value chain.
• Charity is becoming part of Chinese citizen’s life, and it’s important to foster a charitable culture and build social morality. Transparency is the key to enhancing the social sector’s public credibility.

The fair offers a variety of activities during the 3-day event – exhibitions, forums and salons, experiential showcases, carnivals ( photography exhibitions, movie shows, auctions ) and a dynamic online participation platform. ( exciting, isn’t it? )

Although it’s the first national charity fair, the grand size is already amazing. The main venue is Hall 6, 7, 8 at the modern ShenZhen Convention and Exhibition Center, with a total pace around 15,000 Square Meters, or around 160,000 square feet, to host over 400 exhibitors selected from nearly 1,100 applications. Among them, as of June 29, there are 233 nonprofit organizations, 99 foundations, 95 corporations, and 12 supporting organizations in research, media etc. A standard booth space is offered free to each exhibitor, and subsidies for travels and accommodations are available to nonprofit organizations that meet the subsidy criteria.

GuangDong province has been pioneering initiatives to engage the social sector, especially since this year. Some newly released policies and regulations in GuangDong province have drawn a lot of interest and discussions in the sector. Shenzhen is considered among the most supportive cities to social innovation. People may recall when Jet Li’s One Foundation was at the edge of closing due to registration and operation obstacles, ShenZhen offered One Foundation a legitimate status as a public foundation. If you are interested in, but not familiar with, these issues, don’t worry – We’ll help you catch up.

Anything newly emerging is worth watching, and this charity fair is extremely interesting, considering the size and the time. I wish I were there! People from the west may be stunned at the level of involvement from the government in Chinese social sector, but to tango with the government is a crucial part in China. I’ll follow the whole thing, and keep you informed: )

For those of you who read Chinese, here are links to the official resources:

* Official web site
* Official Weibo on Sina ( Chinese twitter )
* Official Weibo on Tencent ( another twitter platform)