China's media seeks for anonymous donor who gives millions

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An anonymous donor has left Chinese media and netizens wondering his identity, with a recent donation of half a million yuan (72,500 U.S. dollars), which totals the amount of contributions of more 10 million yuan (1.44 million dollars).

Over the past twenty years, money from the donor have been transferred to the account of Ningbo Charity Federation in Ningbo City of east China's Zhejiang Province.

Though a pseudonym and a non-existent address are used for each donation, the charity staff connected the dots that point to one same donor who has always donated in late November or early December under pseudonyms repeatedly using characters from a four-character Chinese idiom, which means "let it be".

The unnamed donor has donated millions through 20 donations. /Photo via Weibo

As any donation over 10,000 yuan (1,449 dollars) requires the real name and ID card, the donor has split each of his twenty contributions into sums of 9,999 yuan, just a bit below the threshold.

Since the donor's first donation in December 1999, most of the money has been put into education to fund teaching buildings, facilities and help students in need. The charity keeps a file of the donor's donations, and letters and the usage of each donation has been revealed on media.

The anonymous donor's story was reported in 2016 by several Chinese media outlets when a large donation of 910,000 –yuan (131,800 dollars) was made to the charity. With this year's donation, the whole amount has reached 10.05 million yuan (1.45 million dollars), leaving people wondering the identity of the donor.

The donor has been making donations since 1999. /Photo via Weibo

While calling the donor "the mysterious person with a warm heart," some Weibo users call for respect for the unnamed's wish to be anonymous, "We'll always remember this. Those who do good do not necessarily want to be known. Let's respect their choices."

According to a report released by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Social Sciences Academic Press in 2017, China has more than 800,000 social organizations, with 6,322 charity federations, 373,194 social groups and 421,567 private non-enterprise units. The total donation in 2017 was estimated to be 155.8 billion yuan (22.6 billion dollars).