"ME Plan" Sowing The Future Of Public Welfare

Wen / Hua Jun

A large-scale public welfare innovation experiment launched by enterprises has opened its fifth year journey after four years of continuous running. At the end of 2019, one day in the early winter of Beijing, the fifth launching ceremony of the "ME public welfare innovation Subsidy Scheme" (hereinafter referred to as ME innovation plan) was held at Beijing Minsheng Museum of Contemporary Art. The public welfare project was launched by China Minsheng Bank and the China foundation for poverty alleviation in 2015.

Zheng Wanchun, the party secretary and governor of Minsheng Bank, said: "in the past four years, the enthusiasm of public institutions has been increasing continuously. The mechanism of project evaluation has been continuously standardized, the public attention has been continuously improved, and the comprehensive effect of society has continued to expand. It can be said that the ME innovation program has established a monument and won public praise. It is a successful exploration and practice of Minsheng Bank in the field of public welfare.

"Live for the people and symbiosis with the people"

China Minsheng Bank is known as the reform experimental field of China's banking industry. From the beginning of its creation, it has only 1 billion 380 million yuan of capital in a small bank, and now it has developed into a large commercial bank with a total assets of 6 trillion yuan, nearly 2800 branches and 60 thousand employees. China's Minsheng Bank ranked twenty-eighth in the ranking of the 1000 largest banks in the world released by Banker magazine in 2019.

With the mission of "living for the people and symbiotic with the people", China Minsheng Bank has been actively carrying out corporate social responsibility and has launched a series of innovative explorations. In particular, China Minsheng Bank has responded positively to the national strategic plan for poverty alleviation and building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way. It has been actively carrying out poverty alleviation for many years. So far, it has explored the "one wing and two wings" poverty alleviation system, including the central unit's poverty alleviation, the "three districts and three states" deep poverty areas, and the innovation of public welfare assistance. The assistance projects focus on Xinjiang, Tibet, Gansu, Sichuan, Yunnan, Ningxia, Guizhou, Henan and other provinces and regions, and widely cover the poverty-stricken areas in China. Among them, the ME innovation project, a public welfare innovation practice project, has aroused great repercussions in the national public welfare field.

In 2015, on the occasion of its 20th anniversary establishment, China Minsheng Bank and the China foundation for poverty alleviation launched the ME innovation plan to support small and medium-sized public welfare organizations with innovative and developmental potential in areas such as precise poverty alleviation, education equity, ecological civilization, health and well-being, and community development. The plan mainly supports the innovation practice of public welfare organizations from three dimensions: subsidization of public organizations' solutions for research and innovation for a certain social problem; subsidization of product transformation and upgrading of an innovative solution of public welfare organizations; or support of public organizations' innovative solutions to maturity. Zheng Wanchun, the party secretary and governor of Minsheng Bank, believes that the launching of the ME innovation plan is that China Minsheng Bank has never forgotten its responsibilities and responsibilities at the same time of continuous transformation and rapid development.

Up to now, 1763 projects have been received from the ME innovation plan. As of March 2019, the project has provided 43 million yuan grants for 86 public welfare projects, covering 30 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) of the whole country, and directly benefiting 240 thousand people. The ME innovation plan has been held for many years, not only providing support for small and medium-sized public welfare organizations' innovative projects, meeting some unmet needs of society, but also exploring innovative solutions for the social problems faced by China in the twenty-first Century.

Multifaceted resources help

The ME innovation plan was launched in 2015, and it was warmly welcomed and actively participated by many non-governmental organizations. In fact, for the social organizations involved, the annual ME innovation plan is nothing less than a "public interest examination". The ME innovation plan provides a platform for social organizations. The candidates can not only get 500 thousand yuan of financial support, but also will undergo repeated tests and iterations and upgrade from the original "small and beautiful" to the excellent public welfare projects that can benefit more people and scale the social impact.

Admittedly, 500 thousand yuan is not a huge sum, but it is a valuable subsidy to many non-governmental organizations in China. However, compared to the purely financial support, the support of the ME project after the entry of the public welfare project can be gained from the training of project operation and management ability, the enhancement of brand influence and the grafting of other social resources.

The 500 thousand yuan innovation fund provided by China Minsheng Bank for social organizations is only a breakthrough point. The ME innovation plan brings many advantages to the shortlisted social organizations, such as the growth of capabilities, the perfection of project models and the increase of credit. The ME innovation program has a strict evaluation procedure, with fewer applicants and fewer finalists. Once shortlisted, it is actually equivalent to the endorsement of the two famous institutions of China Minsheng Bank and China Poverty Alleviation foundation. They will be more easily recognized and recognized by the society, and there will be more opportunities to get other social resources.

Many public welfare organizations have deep understanding of this. For example, from Mianyang, Sichuan, "come on!" The rural summer camp, a self-help growth program for rural children, won financial support of 168 thousand yuan in Fucheng District of Mianyang shortly after entering the first ME innovation plan. Although the amount of money is not large, but for a non-governmental NGO organization, this is extremely rare. Prior to that, the project also tried to seek government support, but the government said it would support the development of the project in an administrative way, and financial support would be difficult. The ME innovation program has made the local government aware that the project is not only significant but also standardized in operation, and also has a nationwide impact. The government decided to give financial support.

Liu Wenkui, vice chairman and Secretary General of the China foundation for poverty alleviation, believes that many public institutions funded by the ME innovation program will grow into very influential institutions in the future. Moreover, with the enhancement of China's national strength, some of China's social organizations will become international social organizations in the future. "These are the seeds planted by the ME innovation program." Liu Wenkui said.

Iterative upgrading of public welfare projects

With the help of various resources brought by the ME innovation plan, some public welfare projects have been innovated iteratively, upgrading in the aspects of project design, operation management, brand marketing and so on, and achieved good social effects. Sponsored by the Cultural Association of Inner Mongolia, the two public service project, "e workshop of the grass man", was awarded in 2015 and 2017.

In 2007, the Liberal Arts Association of the former Inner Mongolia banner of the United States, after having tried free English education and environmental protection projects, and in 2013, under the suggestion of the local civil affairs department, complies with the national precise poverty alleviation strategy, turns to the community based poverty alleviation project, and trains the disabled youth with one to one training mode. At the end of 2015, the founder of the Association learned the information of the first ME innovation plan and redesigned the project as "e workshop for the grass man".

The e workshop of "community grass man" uses free grass and reed leaves as the raw material, and teaches free hands to the disabled young people with poor hands and poor family women, and then makes integrated marketing with tourism platforms, online micro stores and offline communities, so as to establish a stable source of income for them.

The first batch of trainees were 50 disabled children aged 15~25 years old and 100 women who were laid off from poor families. Their straw products were mainly small animals. By the end of the first ME innovation plan, more than 8000 pieces of products have been produced by the trainees, with a monthly income of 500 to 1000 yuan per person.

However, this stage of sales is too dependent on personal social resources, and has not formed a long-term stable customer base. The project still needs time and funds to continue to develop. In 2017, the project again applied for the third ME innovation plan in the name of "e workshop". At this point, the project has been iterated and upgraded in terms of project content and management.

According to the plan, the "e workshop" project is to train 100 rural poor families in 2 years, of which 40 are precise helping the poor, helping 8 students get rid of poverty. At the same time, the establishment of 1 "e workshop" sharing marketing center, to solve student training, product sales and employment problems; establish 1 online marketing service platform, students can open shop on the platform, and gradually help them achieve their own business.

Compared with the first ME innovation project, the "grass e workshop" project has changed in the content of grass skill training. From simple animals to basketballs, baskets, plates, straw drafting, straw mat and other articles, weaving skills are more complex and products are more practical. The project also began to seek more professional partners to better integrate projects with the market and further promote self production and self marketing. They found a company specializing in the production and sale of handicrafts through the Internet, inviting the company to have more skilled knitting teachers for training. They also launched a creative competition for handicrafts, bringing together the works of folk artists to select products that can be scaled up to make preparations for the upgrading of straw ornaments.

The project has also made innovations in the sales link, that is, from scattered sale to enterprise order. They have signed a cooperation agreement with a local enterprise, which not only buys straw woven products, but also receives training qualified knitting technicians. In addition, the Boya Cultural Association also signed a cooperation agreement with Jilin Qing Yue boutique Knitting Co., Ltd., which bought the straw products at a reasonable price and further expanded its sales.

Professor Deng Guosheng, vice president of charitable College of Tsinghua University, has been concerned about the development of ME innovation plan. In his view, the two entry of "e workshop" is exactly the two iteration upgrade of the project. The first upgrade in 2015 is the first upgrade, which is the phase of new project exploration and trial and error. The upgrading is mainly reflected in the expansion of the scope of the beneficiary and the increase of training content. In 2017, the second shortlist was the second upgrade, and the iteration was more obvious. It not only continued the characteristics of "straw + Internet", but also improved significantly from product quality to sales channels.

These two upgrades can be said to be the result of the continuous improvement of the operation and management capabilities and resource integration and utilization capabilities of the project team after the help of the ME innovation plan.

People's livelihood is constant. Accumulation of power is nothing but wisdom. China Minsheng Bank Chairman Hongqi said in his message to ME's innovation plan that since its establishment in 1996, Minsheng Bank has taken the initiative to shoulder social responsibilities and has formed a unique path of social responsibility through innovative ideas and mechanisms. It is hoped that the ME innovation plan will fully tap and empower the community's innovative and representative public interest organizations, promote the healthy development of China's public welfare undertakings, and make innovations more conducive to public welfare.