Wang Shi and the “donation Gate”

Wang Shi and the “Donation Gate”

Immediately after the Wenchuan earthquake in May, 2008, money in the form of donations began flooding in to relieve the suffering and help to rebuild the devastated infrastructure of Northwest Sichuan Province. Ordinary citizens, workers and students reached deep into their pockets.  But many great donations came from companies, some donating as much as 10 million yuan, and a few going even as high as 100 million yuan. Vanke donated 2 million yuan. In the past several years China’s real estate industry has been very profitable, but in the charity race this windfall industry donated less money than any other industry.

In response to criticism from the public, Wang Shi issued a statement on his blog on May 15. In his blog titled “Life Is Most Precious”, Wang defended Vanke donation of 2 m RMB (about $0.286 m) is appropriate. He said that charity should not become a burden for public companies, and Vanke would like its employee contain his/her individual donation up to 10 RMB ($1.50). He said the most important thing is to save lives, Vanke is doing the best to build safe homes so that (in the future) more lives will be saved, should similar disaster happen. He also said charity is a life long thing, it should not be treated as a campaign.

The company has been under fire from the media and netizens since he posted the blog. This explanation served only to trigger a typhoon of outrage that charity towards stricken countrymen should be considered by Wang to be a burden. Repliers to the blog statement demanded that it was the duty of enterprises with windfall profits to take on more social responsibilities. People are so furious about his 10 Yuan comments, and changed his name to 王十(10 in Chinese), the whole thing becomes a donation gate.

Under public pressure, Wang Shi and Vanke quickly responded by pledging another 100 million Yuan to help rebuild a town in Mianzhu, Sichuan. Wang issued an apology on his blog saying that he didn’t know the disaster is so severe, and what he wrote was indeed inappropriate. Wang also admitted his comments about quake donations have damaged Vanke's brand image and he was sorry for that.

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