One Foundation

One Foundation

Logo of One Foundation
Founded December 3, 2010
Founder Jet Li
Focus disaster relief, children's welfare, professional training
Location
Area served
 China
Method Funding
Endowment ¥50,000,000 RMB
(December 3, 2010)[1]
Volunteers
 more than 230[2]
Slogan 1 Person + 1 Dollar/Yuan + 1 Month = 1 Big Family[3]
Website www.onefoundation.cn

The One Foundation (Chinese: 壹基金), full title Shenzhen One Foundation Charity Fund (Chinese: 深圳壹基金公益基金会), was registered on December 3, 2010, as the first private charitable fundraising organization in China. One Foundation strives to provide a professional and transparent charitable platform according to the vision of "Charity by All, Doing What I Can" (Chinese: 尽我所能，人人公益). One Foundation's strategy is for this one platform to cover three areas of activity: in disaster relief, children's welfare and the training of public welfare professionals.

One Foundation was originally founded by Chinese Red Cross ambassador Jet Li in April 2007 as the Red Cross Society of China Jet Li One Foundation Project (Chinese: 中国红十字会李连杰壹基金计划). In October 2010, One Foundation registered in Shanghai as a private equity fund under the title Shanghai Jet Li One Foundation Charity Fund (Chinese: 上海李连杰壹基金公益基金会). Both of these registrations along with associated funds, projects and personnel were later rolled into the Shenzhen-based foundation.

With the 2010 registration in Shenzhen, One Foundation became authorized to act as a fully independent charity. The founding organizations were the Shanghai Jet Li One Foundation Charity Fund, Lao Niu Foundation (Chinese: 老牛基金会), Tencent Charitable Foundation (Chinese: 腾讯公益慈善基金会), Vantone Foundation (Chinese: 万通公益基金会) and Vanke Foundation (Chinese: 万科公益基金会). Each founding organization donated 10 million RMB for a total of 50 million RMB start-up capital.

As of April 2013, the board of directors consisted of 11 members, in alphabetical order: Feng Lun (Chinese: 冯仑), Jet Li (Chinese: 李连杰), Liu Chuanzhi (Chinese: 柳传志), Pony Ma (Chinese: 马化腾), Ma Weihua (Chinese: 马蔚华), Jack Ma (Chinese: 马云), Niu Gensheng (Chinese: 牛根生), Wang Shi (Chinese: 王石), Yang Peng (Chinese: 杨鹏), Zhou Qiren (Chinese: 周其仁) and Zhou Weiyan (Chinese: 周惟彦).[1]

History

While Jet Li was vacationing in the Maldives on December 26, 2004 with his family, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami struck. He was immediately able to grab hold of his older daughter while his younger daughter (a toddler at the time) was swept aside by the water. As a result of his calls for help and recognition amongst the locals, she was saved and reunited with Jet Li. Understanding that in life there are countless times when help is given by others, he was inspired by this incident to create and set-up the Jet Li One Foundation as his way of giving back.

The foundation officially began on April 19, 2007. Jet Li ceased film production for the entire year of 2008, devoting all of his time to developing and growing the foundation.

Volunteers

Volunteers for the foundation pledge themselves to donating a set amount each year and/or committing one hour of their time each month to the community through their line of work or other form of volunteer work.

Volunteers are classified into four groups: Academic, Individual, Student, and Organizational.

Notable volunteers include Yao Ming, Andy Lau, Michelle Yeoh, Kang Xiaoguang, Jack Ma, Xu Yongguang, Zhuang Ailing, Li Bingbing, and Beijing Normal University.

Donations

The One Foundation promotes "1 person + 1 dollar + 1 month = 1 big family." By pooling together individual donations, the One Foundation aims to mobilize the power of the masses to promote and participate in philanthropy in China, Asia, and worldwide.

As of April 2013, only donations from within China and via PayPal are being accepted.[4]

To fund relief efforts after the Lushan earthquake in April 2013, the One Foundation started to accept donations in the virtual currency Bitcoin, and received an amount of $30.000 within a few days.[5][6]

Confusion and Damage Control

The reputation of the Chinese Red Cross was severely damaged following the Guo Meimei scandal in 2011.[7] Since that time, One Foundation has distanced itself from its previous status as an arm of the Red Cross. Following the 2013 Lushan earthquake, web users in China discovered that the English section of the One Foundation website still claimed there was a direct link to the Red Cross, and that donations to One Foundation would be "deposited directly into an account held by the Red Cross Society of China, earmarked for use by the One Foundation." One Foundation promptly took down the English site and issued a statement that the information was outdated, representing the situation before December 3, 2010, and that only information on the site in Chinese should be considered correct.[8]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1
  2. ↑ Individual Long-Term Volunteers List
  3. ↑ Introduction of One Foundation
  4. ↑
  5. ↑ Chinese “One Foundation” First to Accept Bitcoin, Receives $30,000 Vitalik Buterin, 26 April 2013, Bitcoin Magazine
  6. ↑ 比特币再续：壹基金宣布接受比特币捐赠 (The Bitcoin adjourned: One Foundation announced its acceptance of Bitcoin donations)
  7. ↑
  8. ↑

External links