By exploiting goodwill, Shuidichou exhausts philanthropy

Shuidichou, a crowdfunding company that focuses on donations for low-income patients seeking medical treatment, reportedly sends its representatives to hospital wards to persuade the in-patients to install its app and rally donations by sharing their tragic experiences via WeChat. China Daily writer Zhang Zhouxiang comments:

The company's deeds have aroused deep criticism online, yet its business model is in accordance with charity principles.

Charities need professional staff to persuade people to donate money, and they need to communicate their good deeds to society.

Charity organizations therefore take a certain percentage of the money they collect to pay their employees and cover the costs of their operations.

Yet despite this, it has done something wrong. Its wrong lies in over-exploiting the goodwill of the people as a commercial business and exploiting their willingness to help others to make a profit.

By donating money, people hope to send help to those in need. Especially, as those who donate money via Shuidichou are ordinary people who hope the money will help those who are in the direst need.

But when people donate money via Shuidichou, as well as profiting the company, they do not know whether the patient really needs help, whether the patient has tried his or her best before asking for help, and whether the recipient of the donations will spend the money on treatment.

The result of this may be disastrous as the public may lose trust in the charity system.

In the long run, the patients who are in desperate need of help, will lose the opportunity to gain assistance.

Shuidichou has already suspended its representative teams in response to the media reports. It is time to improve the supervision system over the charity industry to ensure its healthy operation.