TOUGH TRAIL: Ermu Epo (front) guides villagers living in the mountains of Meigu County, southwestern Sichuan Province, carrying clothing, quilts and stationery donated by netizens (XINHUA)

The program has also publicized all the information about the products they purchased through public bidding. Therefore, the public can compare the prices to those in supermarkets.

The CFPA experienced delivering charity under harsh conditions. In May 2010, Cao Dewang, founder and Board Chairman of Fuyao Glass Industry Group based in Fuzhou, southeastern Fujian Province, the world's second largest auto glass maker, donated 200 million yuan ($30.4 million) to nearly 100,000 impoverished rural families in five provinces in west China. Severe droughts hit vast areas in these provinces in that year.

Cao gave the money—the largest single private donation in China's history—to the CFPA. But the strict conditions that came with the donation are making its distribution a daunting task.

To ensure the donation would be successfully granted, Cao signed an agreement with the CFPA based on three conditions: The CFPA had to distribute the funds within six months; rate of error in distribution had to be less than 1 percent; and the administrative fee the CFPA received would be limited to 3 percent of the total donation amount.

The Regulations on Foundation Administration states the highest administrative fee for such donations can be 10 percent of the donated amount. But Cao gave only 6 million yuan ($964,000) to the CFPA as the administrative expenses of the funds. "Keeping the rate of error under 1 percent is not difficult when there are 100 recipients. However, it became much more difficult when the donations needed to be distributed to nearly 100,000 households. It required a large amount of manpower and many channels to deliver money accurately to those in need," Chen said.

He Daofeng, Vice President of the CFPA, said that the handling of Cao's donation has set a good example for charity foundations in China to build accountability systems and promote transparency in charity contributions.

The distribution drive turned out to be a success according to a third-party appraisal, which was also lauded by Cao. In Cao's office, there are dozens of boxes of materials on his donation program, including information on 92,150 poor households in 5,820 villages of 17 counties.

"I have donated to charitable causes for so many years and this is the first time I've received such detailed original information on beneficiaries," Cao said.

Greater involvement

Fan Xiaojian, head of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, spoke highly of the program. He said that children will be an important target of China's poverty alleviation work in the future at an international seminar on November 20.

Besides the CFPA's Love Parcel program, children in poor and disaster-prone areas are receiving aid from a growing number of corporations and individuals.

Ermu Epo is a 31-year-old civil servant in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, southwestern Sichuan Province, one of the most poverty-stricken areas in the country. He was the first person to organize large-scale school supplies and clothes donations to students in poor areas.

Growing up in a poor farmers' family and working as a primary school teacher for four years before joining the civil service, Ermu was saddened to witness the harsh living conditions of local children. In 2005, he posted a blog asking "Who Can Give Me Some Winter Clothes?" and attached photos of children with ragged clothes and bare feet on a snowy day.

His message immediately attracted mailed donations of stationery and clothes. In the following years, Ermu dedicated his blogs to raising donations for local children. In response to netizens who answered his calls, he often posted pictures of children's happy smiles when holding the gifts he delivered.

Over six years, Ermu's charity campaign drew more than 300,000 in donated clothes, stationery and quilts, and he sent the packages by horse to poor people in more than 100 remote mountain villages. People who knew of Ermu's campaign also offer scholarships of 800 yuan ($129) to 5,000 yuan ($803) a year to more than 100 students.

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