Social Media to Promote Social Good

Gates Foundation launches its official social media platforms
on Sina, Tencent and Renren

BEIJING, Dec. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- China's first "International Forum on Social Media for Social Good" was held in Beijing on December 2, 2011. The Forum was organized by Peking University and sponsored by Tencent Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Baidu Foundation, with support from China's social media pioneer enterprises Sina.com, Renren, Inc., Alibaba Group, etc. More than 200 representatives from overseas and domestic philanthropy organizations and Internet enterprises attended the Forum.

Chairman and CEO of Renren, Inc. Joe Chen, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Sina.com Deng Qingxu, Senior Vice President of Alibaba Group Jin Jianhang, Executive Secretary-General of Tencent Foundation Dou Ruigang, and the Gates Foundation Chief Communications Officer Kate James delivered keynote speeches respectively, and shared their strategies and practices of using social media to promote social good.

The Gates Foundation announced at the Forum the official launch of its microblogs on Sina, Tencent, and Renren. "Social media is a new technology which can take the long and noble tradition of giving in China to a new level." In her keynote speech, Kate James pointed out, "Chinese people have the experience, the innovation and the compassion to tackle these issues and make their voice heard around the globe. It is your creativity, leadership and your spirit of giving which can make the difference. "

The Forum had panel discussions and case sharing to explore new trends in social media development, and opportunities and challenges in the process of using social media to promote social good. Overseas and domestic philanthropy organizations, including China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), as well as celebrities and grassroots organizations, shared their experiences.

At the Forum, philanthropy organizations, Tencent Foundation, Gates Foundation and Baidu Foundation, in conjunction with Internet companies Renren.com, QQ.com, Sina.com, Baidu.com and Alibaba.com, signed the Beijing Declaration, committing to establish a working organization to ensure that the International Forum on Social Media for Social Good runs on a regular basis each year, and to build the Forum as a bridge and platform facilitating communications between philanthropy organizations and Internet enterprises. All participating companies and organizations expressed the wish that the Forum will serve to attract more participants, thus to develop a truly national culture of philanthropy.

The Internet companies had a chance to acknowledge voices of the front-line philanthropy organizations through the Forum, and provided a joint training course on December 3. Tencent, Baidu, Google, Alibaba, Renren and Sina gave briefings on their service platforms that are available for non-profit organizations respectively, and shared their successful experiences in promoting charitable projects. More than 80 philanthropy organizations shared their ideas of charity and philanthropy, and came up with a number of innovative programs in collaboration with emerging social media platforms.

Discussions on social media for social good began in September 2011. Back then, with the United Nations Foundation's vigorous efforts, the first Social Good Summit was held in New York, the United States. Following that, the African Media Leaders Forum, the first African new media and philanthropy forum, was held in Tunis, Tunisia in mid-November. This is the first time that China holds a forum to discuss what can be done through social media to promote social good.