Comrades and Friends:

Good morning, everyone! I am so delighted to be invited to the beautiful land of Yangtze River and Huaihe River to attend the 2023 Yangtze River Delta Charity Integration Development Forum hosted by Anhui Provincial Charity Federation and discuss charity development plan and share the achievements of regional linkage with all charity colleagues. It is not only a vivid practice of promoting the integration of the Yangtze River Delta, but also an innovative measure for the coordinated development of charitable organizations. It is of great significance for enhancing the vitality of charity in the Yangtze River Delta region and promoting the high-quality development of charity undertakings. On behalf of China Charity Federation, I would like to extend warm congratulations on the convention of this forum! I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all sectors of society who have been caring and supporting the development of charity in China for a long time!

The Yangtze River Delta region is the most dynamic and urbanized region in China's economy. For a long time, based on the national strategy of integrating the development of the Yangtze River Delta, charity federations in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, and Shanghai have actively innovated and taken the lead to create livelihood charity, project charity and legal charity, where they have achieved outstanding results in the field of charity work and are among the top in the country. The cooperation between the four charitable federations in promoting the integration of charity in the Yangtze River Delta has had a positive impact in the field of charity nationwide. This year’s Forum on Promoting the Integrated Development of Charity in the Yangtze River Delta focuses on helping rural revitalization with charity, which deeply explores the mechanism of regional interaction development, aiming is to further consolidate the consensus on the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta and achieve resource sharing and coordinated development of regional charity, which has an important guiding role for the Yangtze River Delta region and even the whole country to better participate in the third distribution of charity and contribute to common prosperity. I will talk about my understanding about the forum theme and exchange with everyone the following opinions:

　　I. Focus on the major strategy of rural revitalization is the glorious mission of charity federations nationwide

In 2017, it was proposed in the 19^th CPC National Congress that the Implementation of Rural Revitalization Strategy for the first time, which has made overall arrangements for prioritizing the development of agriculture and rural areas and comprehensively promoting rural revitalization; In 2018, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued Strategic Plan for Rural Revitalization; In 2020, with a comprehensive victory in the poverty alleviation campaign, China achieved the poverty reduction goal of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 10 years ahead of schedule, taking a solid step on the path of promoting common prosperity for all people; In 2021, the central government issued Document No. 1, Opinions on Comprehensively Promoting Rural Revitalization and Accelerating Agricultural and Rural Modernization Construction, and specifically issued  Opinions on Realizing the Effective Connection between Consolidating and Expanding the Achievements of Poverty Alleviation and Rural Revitalization, clarifying the work focus of promoting rural revitalization strategy after comprehensively winning the battle against poverty; In 2022, it was proposed in the report of  the 20^th CPC National Congress that the concept of comprehensively promoting rural revitalization, further clarifying the position, role and significance of promoting rural revitalization in the overall construction of a socialist modernized country and comprehensively deploying the main tasks that must be urgently implemented to promote rural revitalization; not long ago, Secretary General Xi Jinping stressed during his inspection in Guangdong that “to promote Chinese path to modernization, we must comprehensively promote rural revitalization and solve the problem of unbalanced development between urban and rural areas and regions." This is not only a clear requirement for Guangdong Province, but also an ardent expectation for the whole CPC, all regions and all walks of life nationwide.

At present, the most prominent phenomenon in rural area is the contradiction between the growing demand for a better life and imbalanced and insufficient development of the Chinese people. China‘s being in the primary stage of socialism  will be  reflected in rural areas to a large degree for a long time. In the critical period of embarking on a new journey of comprehensively building a socialist modernized country and advancing towards the second centenary goal, the central government clearly pointed out that "the most arduous and the most difficult task of comprehensively building a socialist modernized country and achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation still lies in rural areas, and the widest and deepest foundation still lies in rural areas", After winning the battle against poverty and building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, we need to consolidate and expand the achievements of poverty alleviation, do a good job in rural revitalization and continue to promote the development of poverty-stricken areas and the improvement of people’s lives. It can be said that the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy is an important foundation for improving China’s modern economic system, a key measure to build a beautiful China, an inevitable choice to achieve common prosperity for all people, which has great practical and far-reaching historical significance for solving the major social contradictions in the new era and promoting the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with Chinese path to modernization.

As an important component of socialism with Chinese characteristics, Charity is not only an organic component of China's basic economic system, livelihood security system and social governance system, but also an important practice of our party's purpose for the people, an important embodiment of socialist core values and an indispensable force in participating in the third distribution, helping common prosperity and promoting rural revitalization. It is emphasized in the report of the 19^th CPC National Congress that the improvement of systems such as social assistance, social welfare, charity, preferential treatment and resettlement and clearly regards charity as an important component of China’s multi-level social security system; it was proposed in the Fourth Plenary Session of the 19^th CPC Central Committee for the first time that to "attach importance to the role of the third distribution and develop social public welfare undertakings such as charity", elevating charity undertakings to the height of adhering to and improving the socialist basic economic system, promoting the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity; it was requested in the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19^th CPC Central Committee the "implementaion of the third distribution role, development of charity undertakings and improvement of  the distribution pattern of income and wealth" and charity undertakings be regarded as an important way to promote common prosperity; it was further proposed in the report of the 20^th CPC National Congress that to "guide and support willing and capable enterprises, social organizations and individuals to actively participate in public welfare and charitable undertakings”, making the development of charitable undertakings an important measure to improve the distribution system and making clear arrangements.

As the backbone of charity with Chinese characteristics, charitable undertakings in China bears a glorious mission and significant responsibility and charity system currently lies in a rare period of vigorous development opportunities. As of the end of 2021, there are a total of 2,727 county-level and above charitable organizations and 31 provincial-level charitable organizations in China, basically achieving full administrative coverage; there are 325 prefecture level charitable organizations with an administrative coverage rate of 97.59%; there are 2,370 county-level charitable organizations with an administrative coverage rate of 83.19%. In addition, there are 67,062 charity branches and charity liaison stations affiliated with county-level charity clubs and a nationwide charity organization network is becoming increasingly perfect. According to incomplete statistics, in 2021, 32 provincial-level or above charitable organizations nationwide carried out 1,281 key charity projects, covering various fields such as elderly care, orphan assistance, education assistance, medical care, helping the weak and impoverished and combating the epidemic, benefiting over 32 million people; the top 195 national charitable organizations included in the statistics have a total fundraising amount of over RMB 32.5 billion Yuan, including 41 charitable organizations with annual fundraising income exceeding RMB 100 million Yuan and 9 charitable organizations with annual fundraising income exceeding RMB 500 million Yuan. The national charitable organizations have demonstrated strong social resource mobilization and integration capabilities.

During years of practice, we deeply feel that dedicating ourselves to rural revitalization is an important responsibility and glorious mission of charitable organizations, especially for the charitable organization system. It is an important manifestation of charitable organizations serving the country, society, the people and promoting the high-quality development of charitable undertakings with Chinese characteristics. It is also an important way and broad stage for charitable organizations at all levels to develop and achieve their own improvement. As the leader of the national charity organization system, China Charity Federation has actively responded to the central call and fully participated in the poverty alleviation and rural revitalization strategy in the past decade. Over RMB 8 billion Yuan in funds and materials has been donated, which plays a positive role in consolidating and expanding the achievements of poverty alleviation and assisting rural revitalization. I believe that in the context of comprehensively building a socialist modernized country and promoting rural revitalization, China Charity Federation will continue to work together with the national charity organization system, especially to strengthen cooperation with charity organizations at all levels in the Yangtze River Delta region. Guided by the overall work of the Communist Party and the Nation, with a focus on helping the weak and the poor, the elderly and the young, education assistance and medical assistance, China Charity Federation will consolidate and expand the achievements of poverty alleviation and promote rural revitalization, strengthen grassroots governance and contribute new charitable forces to common prosperity.

II. The Happy Home Project is a “Hope Project” for the new era charity system to join hands in rural revitalization

The Happy Home Project is an important spirit of China Charity Federation in earnestly implementing the third allocation role of the Party and the Nation, develops charitable undertakings and promotes common prosperity. It closely focuses on consolidating the achievements of poverty alleviation, assisting in the response to major emergencies such as the national strategy for rural revitalization and epidemic prevention and control. It collaborates with charitable organizations at all levels nationwide and cooperates with the Internet fundraising information platform designated by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, utilizing legal qualifications for public fundraising, helping villages and communities regulate fundraising, mobilizing social forces, integrating social resources and jointly creating an innovative charity platform project that serves urban and rural communities across the country.

In 2022, in order to implement the decision and deployment of the CPC Central Committee to implement the rural revitalization strategy, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the National Rural Revitalization Bureau issued the Notice on Mobilizing and Guiding Social Organizations to Participate in Rural Revitalization Work and the Special Action Plan for Social Organizations to Assist Rural Revitalization, we specifically propose to “accelerate the construction of a social organization participation in rural revitalization docking platform”, “facilitate the precise and effective connection between the supply of social organization resources for rural revitalization and the demand for assistance to regions”, and “build a social organization assistance platform for rural revitalization work, better play a demonstration and driving role”, which not only provides specific guidance and important basis for the charity system nationwide to accurately locate and make contributions in rural revitalization, but also provides important guidelines, but also offers policy guidance and value leadership for the in-depth implementation of the Happy Home Project, which is specifically reflected in four aspects.

Firstly, Happy Home Project is prominent in national joint-action, which is conducive to creating a unified brand for national charitable organizations to be devoted to rural revitalization. The Happy Home Project connects charitable organizations at all levels across the country more closely, providing a more specialized shared service network for village public welfare and charity through the village mutual aid fund system, volunteer service point statistics and exchange system and smart finance system. The comprehensive promotion and overall promotion of the project nationwide is conducive to establishing the brand image of  Charity organizations nationwide involved in rural revitalization, developing a scale effect, achieving the mobilization and integration of charitable resources and the dissemination and popularization of charitable culture in a wider range of fields, forming a strong joint force for everyone to participate in charity and jointly build a happy home and better playing the important role of the charity system in rural revitalization.

Secondly, the Happy Home Project is highlighted in community empowerment, which is conducive to integrating charitable resources and improving the modern rural governance system. The Happy Home Project can provide relatively stable financial and human support to rural communities by supporting the legitimate and standardized fundraising of rural communities and assisting them in forming volunteer service teams. It is an important measure to implement the central government's "Five-Level Interaction" with communities as a platform, social organizations as carriers, social workers as support, community volunteers as support and social charity resources as assistance. It is not only conducive to empowering communities, cultivating the ability of the people to self-organize, manage and integrate resources can also provide convenience for all sectors of society to participate in charitable causes, which is of great significance for further improving the rural governance system and enhancing the modernization level of rural governance.

Thirdly, the Happy Home Project is conspicuous in the sense of patriotism, which is conducive to stimulating the enthusiasm of all sectors of society to participate in charitable undertakings and devote themselves to rural revitalization. The Happy Home Project relies on virtual community through the Internet embeds the genes of patriotism in excellent traditional Chinese culture, which helps to stimulate the enthusiasm of all sectors of society to participate in charitable causes, mobilize the endogenous driving force of grassroots people to participate in rural revitalization, and more easily guide grassroots organizations and the general public to practice the socialist core values of civilization, harmony, integrity and friendliness in order to achieve the prosperity of rural industries, ecological livability civilized rural culture, effective governance and a prosperous life unite a stronger spiritual force.

Fourthly, the Happy Home Project is proficient in digital charity, which is conducive to promoting the transformation and upgrading of charity work in the new era. From a technical perspective, the Happy Home Project is an Internet charity service customized and developed by China Charity Federation based on Gongyibao, an online fundraising platform designated by the Ministry of Civil Affairs. In today's era where China’s economy and society embraces the Internet, by promoting the Happy Home Project, we can rely on mobile Internet to achieve handheld charity, anytime charity and everyone charity, providing long-term, stable, convenient, efficient and transparent services to the public and promoting the information construction and transformation and upgrading of charity work at all levels.

　　III. Striving to build the Happy Home Project as a model of charitable assistance for rural revitalization in the Yangtze River Delta region

In September 2020, in collaboration with various charitable organizations across the country, China Charity Federation officially launched the Happy Home Project in Zhengzhou. In the past three years, in accordance with the four-level joint-action development concept of "with CCF’s Initiative, Provincial Charities’ Overall Planning, City-level Charities’ Coordination and County-level Charities’ Implementation", the Happy Home Project has effectively integrated the system and resource advantages of the charities system nationwide, which is strongly supported by party committees and people’s governments at all levels in the comprehensive implementation and overall promotion with full trust from the people and a series of fruitful results. As of July 2023, a total of 788 charitable organizations from 30 provinces and cities across the country have joined the Project with over 536,000 villagers to register and claim 41,000 village communities, receiving RMB 1.54 million person-time donations with a total of over RMB 1.39 billion Yuan. Especially in the field of rural revitalization, the Happy Home Project is featured with nostalgia such as my hometown supporting me for a time and I will love my hometown for a lifetime. With the establishment of a long-term mechanism for social assistance as the core, it focuses on the practical difficulties faced by rural development and the urgent needs of the people. Infrastructure construction, assistance to disadvantaged groups, post epidemic recovery and reconstruction, grassroots social governance has been implemented nationwide More than 10,000 charitable projects, including the construction of rural civilization, have contributed charitable efforts to promoting the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas. It can be said that with the joint efforts of the national charity organization system and colleagues from all sectors of society, the Happy Home Project has taken root and sprouted in the land of China, becoming a logo brand of charity to help rural revitalization.

While affirming our achievements, we are also soberly aware of the problems and challenges faced by the Happy Home Project. For example, the development of regions across the country is uneven and some regions do not attach enough importance or promote it effectively; grassroot charitable organizations lack sufficient social mobilization with a single form of fundraising, overly rely on spontaneous donations, traditional one-day donations and allocated funds and the platform function of linking social resources has not been fully utilized. Some places are greedy for more in fundraising projects and the goals are too high to achieve. In order to fully leverage the important role of the Happy Home Project in assisting rural revitalization and addressing prominent issues in development, China Charity Federation proposed the construction of a new linkage mechanism for the Happy Home Project national charity association system in the second half of last year. By establishing a triple grid of "inter provincial and city level cooperation, east-west cooperation between county-level cooperation and key county clusters", the demonstration area will play a leading and driving role. In August 2022, charity federations in Huanggang City, Hubei Province, Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province and Anqing City, Anhui Province held a cross provincial regional collaboration symposium on the Happy Home project in Huangmei County, Hubei Province and signed a memorandum of understanding on cross provincial regional charity collaboration, aiming to provide a demonstration and model for the balanced development of the Happy Home Project among charity system nationwide. In December last year, China Charity Federation organized the application work for the creation of a national linkage demonstration county called Happy Home. After being applied at the county level, selected at the city level, reviewed at the provincial level and confirmed by China Charity Federation, a total of 196 districts and counties was ultimately selected. In February 2023, China Charity Federation held a national linkage and regional charity collaboration training and exchange meeting for the Happy Home Project in Pu'er city, Yunnan province. The theme was to demonstrate the county interaction mechanism, share work experience, digital construction and project design for learning and exchange, providing support for the social coordination, professional development, standardized operation, and digital transformation of the national charity system. July 2023, the Leading Group of the Happy Home Project of China Charity Federation conducted a special study on the implementation of the project. While fully recognizing the achievements, the Happy Home Project emphasizes the need to further optimize project design, enhance the balance of interests among all parties, enhance internal motivation, achieve maximum national linkage effect, further boost the confidence of all parties in the entire project and further consolidate the coordinated development of the national charity association system.

This year is the beginning year of fully implementing the spirit of the 20^th CPC National Congress. In the new journey and charitable organizations at all levels will also have new achievements for the new struggle, The Yangtze River Delta region is geographically close, closely connected, and culturally connected. Regional charity cooperation has a good foundation. Promoting the integration of charity work here will inevitably have a positive social effect, forming a virtuous cycle of complementary charity advantages in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, and Shanghai, and promoting more efficient allocation of charity resources in the Yangtze River Delta region. Taking this opportunity, we hope that the charitable organizations in the Yangtze River Delta region will actively participate in the national interaction and work together to build a happy homeland, playing a greater role in helping rural revitalization with charity.

The first is to further consolidate consensus and form an internal driving force for collaborative and coordinated development. There is a consensus reached among Charity organizations at all levels in the Yangtze River Delta region on the Happy Home Project with active participation, forming a national linkage mechanism for the project, better achieving integrity, innovation and proactive action, highlighting the value pursuit of people-centered charity in the new era and the mission of helping the weak and the poor. This has important influence and driving force, so that the Happy Homeland project can benefit more grassroots people, and promote the innovative and coordinated development of the national charity system better assist in rural revitalization and accelerate the contribution of common prosperity.

The second is to further seize development opportunities and stimulate the potential of social charity through reform and innovation. At present, the Communist Party and the Nation attach unprecedented importance to charity. The 20^th CPC National Congress has given a new position and role to charity in the new era in the grand cause of Chinese path to modernization with new missions, putting forward new and higher requirements and opening up a broader prospect for the high-quality development of philanthropy. Charity federations at all levels in the Yangtze River Delta region should seize this rare historical opportunity and take the coordinated development of charity system nationwide as an opportunity to continuously improve their internal governance structure, decision-making and execution mechanisms, enhance organizational and execution capabilities, optimize internal control and supervision procedures, form a virtuous operating mechanism of hierarchical division of labor, collaborative cooperation and complementary development among various charity associations, to build a healthy, orderly and diversified cooperation in the charity industry ecology and governance pattern. The Happy Home Project is a powerful lever to carry out major business joint actions such as joint fundraising, project management, charity talent cultivation and charity digital platform deployment. It integrates professional forces, creates industry brands and consolidates social charity resources through reform and innovation, promoting the development of local charity to a higher level and quality.

The third is to further deepen cooperation, communication and strive to create a demonstration model that charity helping rural revitalization. China Charity Federation will carefully summarize the experience and shortcomings since the implementation of the Happy Home Project, further optimize the top-level system design and develop a more comprehensive and practical Happy Home business operation and project promotion model that is more in line with the charity system. We hope that various levels of charitable organizations in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Shanghai will rely on the integrated mechanism of charity in the Yangtze River Delta region to take the lead in the national joint-action practice of the Happy Home Project, explore new challenges, and timely summarize and extract good experiences and practices for implementing the Happy Home project. We will form a sustainable, long-term and suitable path model for promotion, and strive to make the Happy Home project to be a model for charity to help rural revitalization. At the same time, we also hope that the Yangtze River Delta region can play a leading role in the demonstration zone of common prosperity, actively explore the establishment of a collaborative social assistance mechanism between the East and the West using the Happy Home Project as a platform, build an interactive exchange platform, strengthen collaborative cooperation, drive the development of charity in the central and western regions, and make greater contributions to the assistance of charity in rural revitalization.