Our reporter Li Jici

A few days ago, a piece of news threw water like a stone and attracted widespread attention in the charity industry - Zhejiang University of technology and industry received a subsidy of 350 million yuan, which will be used to prepare for the establishment of the country’s first charity college. It is reported that on the occasion of the 110th anniversary of Zhejiang University of technology and industry, Zhongjing Xinhua Asset Management Co., Ltd. donated 350 million yuan to establish the Yingxian special fund of Zhejiang University of technology and industry, funded the establishment of Yingxian charity college, the country’s first charity college, which specializes in cultivating public welfare and charity talents in the national education series of Ben, Shuo and Bo, is committed to exploring new paths and ways for the development of philanthropy in China, and built Yingxian charity building, Make it a new landmark and symbol of Hangzhou and even Zhejiang.

It is reported that Gaoyang, chairman of Zhongjing Xinhua Asset Management Co., Ltd. and an Austrian Chinese, has a deep relationship with Zhejiang industrial and Commercial University. His parents are Mr. Lu Jiaxian and Ms. Gao Wenying, famous philanthropists. Both of them graduated from Hangzhou business school, the predecessor of Zhejiang industrial and Commercial University. Over the years, Gao Yang and his parents have devoted themselves to charity and public welfare undertakings, which has a good social reputation. Gao Yang said that the subsidy is not only the alma mater of thinking about the source of drinking water and giving back to parents, but also hopes to promote the promotion and popularization of charity professional education and charity culture.

A good fruit that should have borne long ago

The reform and opening up has restarted China’s philanthropy and entered a gradual stage. Marked by the upsurge of social donation caused by the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan, it announced the birth of “the first year of China’s public welfare”. In 2014, the State Council issued the guiding opinions on promoting the healthy development of philanthropy, which became the first comprehensive policy document at the national level to encourage the development of philanthropy. In 2016, the charity law was promulgated and implemented, becoming the first basic law in the field of charity in Chinese history, and building an important milestone for doing good according to law and promoting good according to law. Since then, philanthropy has flourished, the social charity atmosphere is rising, and charitable organizations and charitable activities have increasingly stepped into the track of standardization, specialization and scale. The connotation and extension of philanthropy have been greatly improved and expanded. In addition to its basic functions of helping the weak, helping the poor and rescuing the wounded, philanthropy has become an important part of the national multi-level social security system, an important supplement to the social assistance and bottom-up security system, an important way to realize the third distribution of society, and an important embodiment of the socialist core values and the construction of spiritual civilization, As well as an important force in the modernization of national governance system and governance capacity. Charity and philanthropy are not only the externalization of noble moral education and the crystallization of excellent cultural tradition, but also an important indicator of systematic and legalized social practice and social civilization progress.

Considering China’s charity under such a background, the establishment of Yingxian charity college, which aims to promote charity theoretical research and cultivate charity professionals, will fill a gap in China’s charity culture and education, and can also be regarded as a natural result.

A reality that is not optimistic

However, compared with the vigorous practice of charity and public welfare, it is also an indisputable fact that there is a serious lag in the renewal of charity concept, the popularization of charity culture, the exploration of charity theory, the professional training of charity and public welfare talents, as well as the professional capacity-building of charity and public welfare concept dissemination, project operation, fund-raising, organization and management. Compared with charities in advanced countries in the world, the development level of charities in China is still relatively backward, which is mainly reflected in the weak construction of charity culture, the lack of charity academic innovation, the lack of public charity awareness, the lack of charity professionals and so on. Although all localities have made many positive and beneficial attempts, such as explicitly requiring the construction of charitable culture to be included in the construction plan of socialist spiritual civilization and the evaluation system of civilized cities. The “charity cultural exchange base” in Suzhou, the first charity cultural exchange base in China, and the “charity cultural exchange base” in Suzhou, the first in China, will be established in Suzhou. Although it has played an important role in the construction of charity culture and the promotion of charity civilization, and its value has become increasingly prominent, on the whole, the actions of all localities still show a relatively scattered and partial situation, and the knowledge production in the field of public welfare charity in China is still in the primary stage of development.

In terms of charity education, as the first public welfare talent training project at the undergraduate level in China, in June 2020, Zhuhai branch of Beijing Normal University announced that it would no longer set up a minor major in Pedagogy (public welfare and charity management) or accept students. As soon as the news came out, there were endless voices of regret and doubt. A former topic has been raised again: should public welfare charity set up professional education in undergraduate courses? Or from another perspective, is it necessary to receive undergraduate education for public welfare charity? Even in the industry, there are endless debates and it is difficult to unify.

In response to this topic and further explore the development path and training mode of public welfare and charity talents, the public welfare innovation professional class of Shenzhen University, which has been established for five years, organized and carried out the “undergraduate level public welfare innovation and Entrepreneurship Talent Training Mode seminar” at the end of September 2020, and convened more than 10 university representatives, experts and scholars of public welfare institutions to jointly discuss the necessity of promoting public welfare and charity professional education in Colleges and universities.

In recent years, many colleges and universities in China have tried to explore the undergraduate education of public welfare and charity. Based on the common understanding, the charity industry and colleges and universities have also reached more cooperation on charity education and talent training. However, according to the report on the development of academic education of public welfare charity in China issued by the charity Research Institute of Tsinghua University and Mingde public welfare research center, at present, public welfare charity education has not been established as an independent discipline in the mainland, and the number of public welfare charity education projects in Colleges and universities as a special research direction is no more than 15. At present, these projects are still in the prototype shaping stage of the educational model, and face the constraints of capital source, discipline system, administrative management and many other aspects, with a high degree of uncertainty and instability.

The reality is that at present, a solid knowledge system, logical system and theoretical system have not been formed in the field of charity in China, while the gap of charity professionals is still large, which is closely related to the economy, society and society