Review ArticleReview on Social Welfare Crowdfunding in China Based onPEST-SWOT Model

Jing Liang and Ao Chen

Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China

Correspondence should be addressed to Jing Liang; 298600@whut.edu.cn

Received 9 April 2021; Revised 29 April 2021; Accepted 16 May 2021; Published 26 May 2021

Academic Editor: Zhihan Lv

Copyright © 2021 Jing Liang and Ao Chen. (is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons AttributionLicense, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work isproperly cited.

Research shows that social welfare crowdfunding is in the rising stage of development in China, showing a vigorous developmenttrend. Social welfare crowdfunding owns advantages such as accuracy and efficiency that traditional social welfare forms do nothave, but problems including imperfect relevant policies and regulations, lack of supervision of social welfare crowdfundingplatform, and low process transparency still exist. From the perspective of PEST-SWOTmodel, this paper sums up the researchtrends and development status of social welfare crowdfunding, deconstructs the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threatsfaced by social welfare crowdfunding from the aspects of politics, economy, society, and technology, and puts forward a feasibleanalysis of relevant development strategies to provide a reference for its future sustainable development.

1. Introduction

In recent years, social welfare programs, as an essentialsupplement to the national social service system in China,have developed steadily under the strong advocacy of thestate and the active promotion of the society. As of De-cember 31, 2020, the number of the social welfare organi-zations in China reached 7,500, which shows a rapiddevelopment trend. In addition to the traditional forms offund-raising carried out by these social welfare organiza-tions, social welfare crowdfunding is gradually becoming anew way of personal charity for the general public.Crowdfunding is a new financing method that graduallyrises with the development of the Internet; and social welfarecrowdfunding relies on the high openness of the Internet. Itbreaks the shackles of traditional social welfare in space andtime, changes the ecology of social welfare industry, andmakes social welfare projects be in the whole process ofpromotion in the steps of initiating and completing fund-raising and carrying out and realizing projects. As a newpublic security model, it provides a powerful supplement tothe existing social security system. At present, there are only20 platforms designated by the Ministry of Civil Affairs for

Internet fund-raising information crowdfunding platformsfor charitable organizations. Table 1 shows the full range ofplatforms and their operating entities.

(e social welfare crowdfunding studied in this paperrefers to the social welfare crowdfunding within the narrowconcept. It mainly refers to the nonprofit behavior which isfree and altruistic and is carried out through the socialwelfare crowdfunding platform. (e recipients, organiza-tions, and enterprises or qualified social welfare organiza-tions initiate projects on behalf of the recipients to raisefunds from unspecified groups to obtain financial support.Its simple process is shown in Figure 1. With the upgradingand optimization of the dual-terminal interconnection en-vironment and the increasing development of social networkmedia in the depth and breadth of communication, thenumber of people who know and understand the signifi-cance of social welfare crowdfunding and participate insocial welfare crowdfunding is increasing day by day. Inrecent years, the number of crowdfunding platforms and theamount of funds raised by social welfare crowdfunding inChina have maintained a steady upward trend. As a sup-plementary way of offline social welfare assistance, onlinesocial welfare crowdfunding has gradually become the main

HindawiComplexityVolume 2021, Article ID 2537050, 11 pageshttps://doi.org/10.1155/2021/2537050

force in promoting the development of social welfare un-dertakings, especially in the current medical and healthassistance field.

In recent years, different experts and scholars at homeand abroad have conducted theoretical research on socialwelfare crowdfunding in different directions. From theperspective of laws and regulations, Yan [1] has given unique

opinions on the loopholes, defects, and improvement di-rections of the relevant legal system of social welfarecrowdfunding. Referring to the Charity Law of the People’sRepublic of China and relevant regulations of civil affairsdepartments, Liu [2] analyzed the legitimacy problems andvarious legal risks faced by social welfare crowdfunding.From the perspective of technology application, Gu and

Table 1: Legal information platform for Internet fund-raising of charity organizations in China.

No. Name of platform Operating entity1 Tencent Social Welfare Tencent Charity Foundation2 Taobao Public Welfare Zhejiang Taobao Network Co., Ltd.3 Ant Financial Services Public Welfare Zhejiang Ant Microfinance Service Group Co., Ltd.4 Sina Micro-charity Beijing Weimeng Chuangke Network Technology Co., Ltd.5 Jingdong Public Welfare Internet Banking Online (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd.6 Baidu Foundation Baidu Online Network Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd.7 Gongyibao Beijing Houpu Juyi Technology Co., Ltd.8 Xinhua Social Welfare Xinhuanet Co., Ltd.9 Qingsong Gongyi Beijing Qingsongju Network Technology Co., Ltd.10 Lianquan.org Shanghai United Foundation11 Guangyi United Fund-raising Guangzhou Guangyi United Fund-raising Center12 Meituan Social Welfare Beijing Sankuai Cloud Computing Co., Ltd.13 Didi Social Welfare Beijing Xiaoju Technology Co., Ltd.14 Shangyuan Charity BOC Charity Foundation (initiated by Bank of China)15 ICBC Mall Social Welfare Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited16 Shuidi Social Welfare Beijing Shuidi Mutual Insurance Technology Co., Ltd.17 Suning Public Welfare Suning.com Co., Ltd.18 Bangbang Social Welfare China Siyuan Project Foundation for Poverty Alleviation19 Yeepay Public Welfare Yeepay Co., Ltd.

20 Social Participation in Poverty Alleviation andDevelopment of China

Social Poverty Alleviation Network Technology Co., Ltd. (guidedby State Councial Poverty Alleviation Office)

Source: Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People’s Republic of China.

Initiate social welfarecrowdfunding projects

Matching of socialwelfare crowdfunding

projects

Choose social welfarecrowdfunding projects

Platforms

Set fund-raising goals Raising funds Subsidize preferentialprojects

Obtain funds raised Return to raise funds

Achieve fund-raising

targets

Failure to reachthe fund-raising

targets

Cancel the social welfarecrowdfunding project

Reasonable use of fund-raising funds

Implementation of socialwelfare crowdfunding

projects

Be informed of theprogress of the projects

DonorsRecipients

Figure 1: Simple process of social welfare crowdfunding.

2 Complexity

Zhao [3] summarized the regularity of the change anddevelopment of crowdfunding process based on big datacollection and mining. Farooq et al. [4] have established avirtual blockchain system to calculate and evaluate the datastructure, which is helpful to the data scalability ofcrowdfunding platform. Cai et al. [5] have implementedcorresponding theoretical verification on the feasibility ofblockchain boosting social welfare crowdfunding from theperspectives of basic technology, intelligent contract, andbusiness service. From the perspective of participants, Tanget al. [6] studied the theory of platform user experience andthe impact of related concepts on social welfare crowd-funding. Li and Chen [7] discussed the identity dilemma andcorresponding countermeasures for social welfare crowd-funding from the perspective of stakeholder theory. Lee andPark [8] qualitatively used deep learning and econometricmethods to analyze the correlation between donors’ projectparticipation and social welfare crowdfunding content.

To sum up, the existing research has made positive andbeneficial explorations on the future of social welfarecrowdfunding in terms of law, technology, and participantsand promoted and guided the development of social welfarecrowdfunding from a theoretical perspective. However, onthe whole, all of them only study the role of a certain part orsome influencing factors in the present and future socialwelfare crowdfunding from a small aspect and a small angle.(ere is a lack of systematic, complete, and effective analysismethods to sort out the overall situation in the new envi-ronment for social welfare crowdfunding analysis andprovide a strategic development direction to strengthen thecore competitiveness of social welfare crowdfunding in-dustry. (erefore, the research conducted in this paper at-tempts to introduce PEST-SWOT model to explore themacro external environment and micro internal environ-ment of social welfare crowdfunding and its platform frommultiple angles, in order to provide practical developmentstrategies for the sustainable development of social welfarecrowdfunding and provide operable reference opinions forthe blueprint planning of social welfare crowdfundingplatform.

2. Research Method

2.1. PEST Analysis Model. PEST analysis model was putforward by American scholars Johnson and Scholes in 1999.PEST analysis is used to help organizations review theirexternal macro factors, that is, an analysis method for thegeneral external environment. Different industries, enter-prises, and institutions need to analyze each factor accordingto their own characteristics and management needs, that is,from the four main external environmental factors of Pol-itics, Economy, Society, and Technology.

2.2. SWOTAnalysisModel. SWOTanalysis was proposed byVeric, a professor of management at the University of SanFrancisco, in the early 1980s. It is also called situationanalysis or advantage-disadvantage analysis. SWOTanalysisis a comprehensive and accurate research method, which

mainly relies on the internal and external competitive sit-uations (competitive environment and competitive condi-tions) of the organization, as well as the established internalconditions and resources of the organization or industryitself to make the analysis, then determine the organization’sown Strengths,Weaknesses, Opportunities, and(reats, andeventually systematically organize and arrange variousfactors in various aspects to draw scientific conclusions anddraw up strategic plans according to existing conditions withthe help of the results to promote the future development ofthe organization or industry.

3. Analysis on PEST-SWOT Matrix Model ofSocial Welfare Crowdfunding

Both PEST and SWOT analysis start from the internal andexternal conditions of the research object, analyze its macroand micro environment, and draw conclusions as the basisfor decision-making. In this paper, PEST-SWOTmodel cananalyze the relevant influencing factors of social welfarecrowdfunding industry in the four dimensions of Politics,Economy, Society, and Technology and compare and ana-lyze its Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and (reats,resulting in a PEST-SWOT analysis matrix (Table 2).

3.1. Strengths Analysis. In terms of political and legal en-vironment, the state has formulated laws to regulate andguarantee the online and offline development of socialwelfare industries in recent years and has drawn up a largenumber of guiding and supporting policies, in which socialwelfare crowdfunding is naturally included as an online part.Since September 1, 2016, the Charity Law of the People’sRepublic of China has come into force [9]. On July 30, 2017,the Ministry of Civil Affairs issued the Basic TechnicalSpecifications for Internet Public Fundraising InformationPlatform of Charity Organizations and the Basic Manage-ment Specifications for Internet Public Fundraising Infor-mation Platform of Charity Organizations. (e relevantregulations of the newly revised Personal Income Tax Law in2018 encourage individuals to participate in social welfaredonations. Local governments have also introduced relevantlocal laws and regulations one after another, striving toescort social welfare crowdfunding.

In terms of the economic environment, China, as one ofthe few countries that have almost completely recoveredfrom the epidemic, has achieved good results in theimplementation of economic restart measures, and theoverall economic situation has shown a good recovery trend;when calculated at comparable prices, the gross domesticproduct (GDP) in 2020 increased by 2.3% over the previousyear. In the whole year, the per capita disposable income ofthe national residents was 32,189 yuan, a nominal increase of4.7% over the previous year and a real increase of 2.1% afterdeducting the price factor, which basically kept pace with theeconomic growth. As China’s economy is moving forwardsteadily and pursuing smooth domestic circulation, mostordinary people still maintain an optimistic life attitude andbelieve that they can have an even better living condition in

Complexity 3

the future. As a result, some material needs will be trans-formed into spiritual needs. (us, social welfare crowd-funding activities have become a channel for many people tochoose to participate and invest. If their own economicconditions permit, they can help others tide over difficultiesor achieve goals by becoming nominal “investors” through asmall amount of donations. In a certain sense, it helps socialwelfare crowdfunding become a “cost-effective investmentproject.”

In terms of social environment, the low threshold featureof social welfare crowdfunding makes its two-way feature.Recipients only need to pass the audit certificate on the socialwelfare crowdfunding platform, that is, to truly and accu-rately clarify the required information, and then they canpublish projects to accept donations from others. Donorscan select any donation project and donate any amount ofmoney. In theory, recipients can effectively pool the strengthof the public as long as they obtain the approval of somedonors for the donation project. At the same time, socialwelfare crowdfunding has the attributes of fast spread andwide influence shared by Internet + technology, whichfundamentally solves the problems exposed by traditionalsocial welfare in society from time to time, such as helplessrecipients in urgent need of help.

In terms of technological environment, the high pene-tration rate of Internet and mobile payment has created asolid scientific and technological foundation for socialwelfare crowdfunding. (e attribute of “Internet+” makessocial welfare crowdfunding more flexible and efficient andbecomes the choice of most people. According to CNNICdata, by December 2020, the number of Internet users hasreached 989 million in China, and the Internet penetrationrate has reached 70.4%, accounting for more than one-fifthof the total number of Internet users globally. At the sametime, China’s mobile payment market expanded rapidly, andthe development of mobile payment technology changedwith each passing day. (e number of mobile payment users

has reached 853million, ranking first in the world for severalconsecutive years. (rough various mobile payments andsocial welfare crowdfunding apps, people make donation nolonger difficult or troublesome, which objectively provides areliable expansion premise and convenient donationchannel for social welfare crowdfunding.

3.2. Weakness Analysis. In terms of political and legal en-vironment, although the national and local governmentshave formulated many laws and regulations to promote theorderly development of social welfare crowdfunding, thesmall details are not perfect in a short period of time underthe legal framework [10], and some loopholes exist in thetheoretical level, which makes it impossible to completelysolve the existing defects and shortcomings exposed in thepractical level. For example, the legal status and due re-sponsibilities of the social welfare crowdfunding platformare not completely clear, and it is difficult to have laws tofollow when problems arise. Although the Charity Law,which is most closely related to social welfare crowdfunding,can help the social welfare crowdfunding activities to bemore standardized, its support for social welfare crowd-funding is not enough [14]. (ere are no reasonable specialmeasures for the possible illegal and criminal acts of allparties involved, especially the occurrence of vicious inci-dents such as unreasonable fees charged by the platform andfraudulent donations by recipients [12], which may hinderthe sound development of social welfare crowdfunding.

In terms of economic environment, social welfarecrowdfunding activities can indeed bring spiritual satis-faction to people, but this benefit is lagging behind anddelayed; that is, only when the social welfare projectsinvested in donations produce and release accomplishmentswill donors be psychologically satisfied that their investmenthas been rewarded. Before that, it was very difficult forrecipients to get relevant positive feedback, but their

Table 2: PEST-SWOT analysis matrix of social welfare crowdfunding.

PESTSWOT Politics Economy Society Technology

Strengths

Legal guarantee andpolicy support ofnational and local

governments

(e economy has returned tothe right track, and some of thepeople’s material needs havebeen transformed into spiritual

needs

Characteristics of two-waylow threshold and morelikely to get attention

Popular Internet and mobilepayment, easy and fast

Weaknesses

Imperfect small detailsand insufficient

support of the CharityLaw

Lag in the effect of the projectafter the donors’ economic

contribution

Weak position of donorsamong the tripartite

participants

Technical barriers to “Internet+”development between urban andrural areas, which aggravates thedislocation of supply and demand

matching

OpportunitiesState focuses andbroad prospects for

development

New markets, which can bedeveloped step by step andintegrated with business

Adhere to the correctselection of project

standards and give full playto greater social value

Combination with newtechnologies, to solve highlighted

problems

(reats

Continuing medicalinsurance reform,

threatening the base ofthe industry

Continuing epidemic,threatening social andeconomic development

Immature existing charityenvironment, less strongcharity atmosphere at this

stage

Technology gaps andvulnerabilities, may be maliciously

exploited

4 Complexity

economic efforts actually happened. According to the ex-tended theory of rational person hypothesis, people alwaysact in line with their own interests under certain positiveexpectations. If the relevant psychological factors are putaside, social welfare crowdfunding can be simplified as thebehavior of economic expenditure without economic return.Before the goal of social welfare crowdfunding project isachieved, it actually constitutes a negative expectation be-havior for most people in reality, so it will inhibit the oc-currence of social welfare charity activities to a great extent.

In terms of social environment, the specific socialweakness can be attributed to one substantive point; that is,among the three participants in social welfare crowdfundingactivities, donor is in a relatively unequal weak positioncompared with the other two. (e formation of this weakposition mainly comes from the two following factors: First,for the social welfare crowdfunding platform, the recipientaudit and supervision, platform operation, and managementmechanism are not yet mature [13]. (e low threshold forhelp means that there will be spontaneous and uncontrol-lable characteristics of projects initiated by social welfarecrowdfunding sponsors. (is also shows that the platformdoes not have an objective and unified standard to specifywhat matters can be used to initiate donation crowdfunding.Although the degrees of openness and transparency in theproject review process, fund-raising, and flow process varyfrom platform to platform, the degree of disclosure of mostof the information is not satisfactory to donors at present.Second, for recipients, donors’ distrust of them has in-creased, resulting in resistance to donation behavior [14, 15].Nowadays, being sensational and moving has become the“latent standard” of social welfare fund-raising, and“moving” stories with rampant lies can be witnessed oneafter another. Many potential donor groups eager to helpothers will sympathize with the tragic stories of the recipients[16]. However, after too many recipients adopt this templatenarrative, the frequent sympathy of the public may lead toreverse effects, making them numb and even disgusted withsuch information [17]. On the premise that donors want theiraid to be worth the money and do not want their economicefforts to be wasted, the above two points can cause those whoreally need help to suffer greatly and cannot get the neededdonations, which is quite unfavorable to the long-term de-velopment of social welfare crowdfunding.

In terms of technical environment, there are naturaltechnical barriers in Internet + development in rural areas.In our real life, the development of urban and rural areas isnot synchronized. In the original public assistance system,there has been a phenomenon that the demand for assistancein rural areas is greater than that in cities and towns, butsufficient assistance cannot be obtained due to trans-portation, education, infrastructure, and other factors. Fromthe structure of urban and rural netizens and the Internetpenetration rate in recent years, as shown in Figures 2 and 3,it can be found that although the gap is still very big betweenurban and rural network environments, it is graduallynarrowing. (erefore, the launching places of social welfarecrowdfunding projects relying on the Internet will naturallybe more initiated in cities and towns, which aggravates the

dislocation and mismatch of the above-mentioned reliefsupply and demand relationship. (e consequence is that itwill greatly reduce the accuracy of social welfare crowd-funding assistance and the efficiency of funding, and then itis difficult to achieve the fundamental purpose of socialwelfare crowdfunding, that is, to give timely help to thosewho really need help.

3.3. Opportunities Analysis. With regard to the political andlegal environment, the state pays a lot of attention to thedevelopment of social welfare and crowdfunding, consid-ering that social welfare undertakings are undertakings that

73.3 73.771.8

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Figure 2: Structure of Internet users in urban and rural areas ofChina. Data source: the statistical report on the development ofInternet in China over the years.

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Internet penetartion rateBetween urban and rural areas

Figure 3: Internet penetration rate in urban and rural areas ofChina. Data source: the statistical report on the development ofInternet in China over the years.

Complexity 5

enhance people’s livelihood and benefit the public.Crowdfunding is a part of the Internet finance industry,which was previously included in the 13th Five-Year Plan forModern Financial System. As an integrated product ofInternet + social welfare and crowdfunding industry in thenew era, social welfare crowdfunding has broad develop-ment prospects. (erefore, it will undoubtedly get the focusof the state. (e national and local governments will con-tinue to support and guide the development of social welfarecharities on the new path, and the National People’s Con-gress, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and other relevant de-partments will continue to issue laws and regulations andrelevant detailed rules to restrict them and constantlysupplement and improve the Charity Law and other lawsrelated to social welfare crowdfunding, so as to boost theprogress of online social welfare crowdfunding.

In terms of the economic environment, social welfarecrowdfunding projects can be very diverse in the future. Inaddition to the medical aspect, the most important one atpresent, there are also vast markets waiting to be developedin innovation, agriculture, and entertainment. (ese mar-kets are still in the early stage of development in China.Different from medical treatment, these fields have thetendency to be highly commercialized. In the cognition ofmost people, social welfare is free of charge, which goesparallel with commerce. But, in fact, social welfare crowd-funding can collide, interact, and merge with commerce[18]. Normal social welfare crowdfunding platform needs tomaintain its operation and development through appro-priate commercial operation, hold on to an appropriatescale, and follow a process of gradually gaining social trust.At this stage, there are commercial stars participating insocial welfare projects to achieve a win-win situation, andthere are also large commercial companies that will investpart of their profits into social welfare as fund-raising toreflect their sense of social responsibility, which are simpleforms of commercialization at this stage. ConsideringChina’s unique national conditions, the social welfarecrowdfunding platform can carry out commercial cooper-ation with local governments in the future [19] and obtaingovernment endorsement through cooperation modes suchas government capital injection, thus enhancing the un-derstanding and trust of the public in the integration ofsocial welfare and commerce. As long as the commerciali-zation of the social welfare crowdfunding industry maintainsthe integration method which takes social welfare as the“main” and commerce as the “auxiliary” and maintains thespirit of benefiting the public with the help of commerce as atool, it can be conducive to the healthy development of socialwelfare crowdfunding.

In terms of social environment, the society needs socialwelfare crowdfunding and needs to give full play to its socialvalue. According to research, the fund-raising cycle of socialwelfare crowdfunding projects at this stage still correspondsmore to the popularity of the projects. Projects with highpopularity can soon raise or even far exceed the requiredamount. Correspondingly, projects with low popularity willbe far less from the target even after a long wait. Socialwelfare crowdfunding should be different from those

industries where “web traffic is everything” in society, and itneeds to reflect the essential characteristics of social welfare.Under the condition that donors have the right to chooseprojects at will, the social welfare crowdfunding platformshould not push recommendations based on web traffic butfocus on the comprehensive priority of projects. In the shortterm, relying on projects withmore web traffic and platformscan indeed get more fund-raising amount and more man-agement fees. However, the social responsibility value re-quired by social welfare crowdfunding needs to be presentedin a better way. No matter what stage social welfarecrowdfunding will develop in the future, maintaining theproject selection criteria, that is, “the more urgent gets helpfirst” will help social welfare crowdfunding reflect its greatersocial value.

In terms of technological environment, new technologiessuch as cloud computing, big data, and blockchain can becombined with social welfare crowdfunding. By respondingto the call of “industrial digitalization” in the 14th Five-YearPlan of China, as shown in Table 3, technology is used toenhance public trust, thus promoting the development ofnetwork social welfare crowdfunding. Serious problemshighlighted in social welfare crowdfunding can be suc-cessfully solved in the future with the help of gradual ex-periments with the research as well as the development andapplication of some new technologies. For example, relevantinformation such as medical certificates and recipients’ realincome can be audited and supervised with the governmentthrough technologies such as big data sharing, andcrowdfunding qualifications can be effectively audited,which can effectively improve the audit quality of socialwelfare crowdfunding projects in the whole industry.

3.4. &reats Analysis. In terms of the political and legalenvironment, most projects of social welfare crowdfundingfocus on the section of serious illness crowdfunding becausethe low coverage rate of serious illness and the low reim-bursement amount have always been a pain in the con-struction of national medical security system in China for along time [20–23]. (e high medical expenses brought aboutby serious illness are unbearable for most people, and theserious illness insurance with high threshold and complicatedclaim settlement conditions is not accepted by most people.(erefore, the existent value of social welfare crowdfundingmainly lies in that it becomes the “substitute” enabling or-dinary people to have the opportunity to get medical treat-ment for serious illness [24]. As shown in Figure 4, the basicmedical insurance has achieved almost full coverage, and itwill be gradually improved with the deepening reform in theforeseeable future. In recent five-year plans, the state hasproposed improving the universal medical insurance system,and the serious illness problem will be solved step by step,which is bound to adversely affect the base of social welfarecrowdfunding crowdfunding for serious illness.

In terms of economic environment, the epidemic is stillwidespread in most foreign countries or will exist in humansociety for a long time.(e international link in the domesticand international double circulation is still far to reach, and

6 Complexity

the epidemic may pose a continuous threat to China’s socialand economic development. If the authors relax our vigi-lance, the epidemic will severely crack down on our shortlyrecovered domestic economic activities. Such negative ef-fects will directly or indirectly affect social welfare under-takings. If the economic ability of the general public islimited and the material demand rises again, the develop-ment of social welfare crowdfunding will undoubtedly be hithard.

In terms of social environment, the current socialwelfare environment in our society is immature and socialwelfare charity lacks popularity. (is immaturity and lackof popularity are mainly reflected in two aspects: First,some people do not trust charity very much. Charity hasindeed produced various problems at the current stage ofdevelopment in China. However, in order to obtain webtraffic and pursue economic benefits, some new mediaexaggerate the phenomenon by hook or by crook, exag-gerate and hype false social welfare news, and promotepeople to oppose social welfare crowdfunding projectsthrough public opinion, which makes them question therelated information. Second, social welfare activities make

much noise and little done. Nowadays, there are manycharitable activities, whether organized by the govern-ment or nongovernmental organizations, which may bepublicized well in the early stage. However, seldom willthey continue public welfare activities and form a long-flowing public welfare habit. As an online form of socialwelfare charity, social welfare crowdfunding will bethreatened by the above unfavorable factors.

In terms of technical environment, loopholes and defectsin the process of research and development and applicationof new technologies may be maliciously exploited bycriminals. For example, the intelligent contract technologyin the blockchain, as illustrated in Figure 5, can automati-cally perform the predefined crowdfunding qualificationevaluation system; that is, when the conditions are met withthe concluded contract, the intelligent contract can auto-matically execute relevant rules to output correspondingresults. When blockchain applications are reviewed by smartcontract technology, if the uplink process of helping theblockchain to have tamper-proof information features ismaliciously modified by criminals using loopholes in smartcontracts to obtain illegal benefits, it will be a devastatingblow to the confidence of the public in participating in socialwelfare crowdfunding and the credibility of social welfarecrowdfunding organizations.

4. Analysis on the Development Strategy ofSocial Welfare Crowdfunding Industry

(e current situation of social welfare crowdfunding hasbeen systematically analyzed and sorted out with the PEST-SWOTmodel. It can be clearly concluded that social welfarecrowdfunding is experiencing a rising period of develop-ment, and it is necessary to find correct developmentstrategies to effectively play advantages, overcome disad-vantages, seize opportunities, and resolve threats [25].Within the SWOT balance analysis system, SW of the in-ternal environment and OTof the external environment canbe paired with each other, respectively, thus forming a morecomplete and in-depth strategic analysis and obtaining fourtypes of strategies to promote the development of socialwelfare crowdfunding as shown in Table 4.

Table 3: Part of key industries of digital economy.

Cloud computingTo accelerate the iterative upgrade of cloud operating systems, promote technological innovations such as ultra-large-scale distributedstorage, flexible computing, and virtual data isolation, and improve cloud security. To focus on hybrid cloud to cultivate cloud serviceindustries such as industry solutions, system integration, operation, and maintenance managementBig dataTo promote technological innovations such as collection, cleaning, storage, mining, analysis, and visualization algorithms of big data,cultivate the whole life cycle industrial system such as collection, labeling, storage, transmission, management, and application of data, andimprove the standard system of big dataBlockchainTo promote technological innovations in blockchains such as intelligent contracts, consensus algorithms, encryption algorithms, anddistributed systems. To focus on alliance chains to develop blockchain service platforms and application programs in financial technology,supply chain management, government services, and son on and improve the regulatory mechanismSource: the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives through the Year 2035 of the People’sRepublic of China.

748

1177

1345 1354 1361

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Figure 4: (e anount and coverage of basic medical insurance inChina. Data source: National Healthcare Security Administration.

Complexity 7

Contract value

Conditions ofcontract

IF

Assessment offunding condition

Analysis offunding situation

Status of contract

�en rules ofcontract

�en

Registered into block

Block i – 1 Block i Block i + 1

Input 1

Input 2

Application by recipient A

Application by recipient B

Output 1

Output 2

A does not qualify

B meets the applicationconditions and is

confirmed with fundingamount

Figure 5: Application mechanism diagram of blockchain intelligent contract.

Table 4: Analysis matrix of development strategy of social welfare crowdfunding industry.

Internal factor

External environment

Strengths Weaknesses

1. Legal support and policy guarantee 1. (e Charity Law with the greatest correlationdoes not provide insufficient support

2. (e economic operation is on the right track 2. (e crowdfunding goal is delayed and thepsychological return lags behind

3. Low threshold and multichannel participation 3. Relatively weak position of donors4. (e scientific and technological foundation isgood, and the operation process is simple and fast

4. (ere is a contradiction between urban andrural demands and the amount of assistance

Opportunities Growth-oriented strategy (SO) Reversal strategy (WO)

1. State key support 1. Seize the period of strategic opportunities andexpand market share

1. Improve the credibility of the platform andeven the industry

2. Reasonable commercial operationcan be carried out

2. Learn from foreign commercial operationexperience and integrate it into the actual nativeenvironment

2. Effectively use new technologies to solveprominent problems

3. Give full play to greater socialvalue and approach the ideal effect

3. Help solve social problems and expand socialinfluence

3. Narrow the difference between urban andrural areas and promote the matching of supplyand demand

4. Combination with newtechnologies&reats Diversification strategy (ST) Defensive strategy (WT)1. (e country continues to improvethe universal health insurancesystem

1. Getting out of the “comfort zone,” diversifieddevelopment, and expanding the base

1. Formulate and improve relevant developmentstrategies of the industry

2. Economic development continuesto be threatened

2. Maintain strict epidemic prevention measuresand maintain the economic development trend

2. Strengthen discipline and strengthen themanagement of social welfare crowdfundingplatform

3. (e social welfare atmosphere isnot strong

3. Implement pilot new technologies multipletimes and bring to the society after maturity

3. Enhance the donor’s sense of projectparticipation and virtually enhance the donor’sstatus

4. (ere are loopholes in newtechnologies

8 Complexity

4.1. Analysis on Growth-Oriented Strategy (SO Strategy).Growth-oriented strategy refers to the development strategywhen industries or organizations have environmental op-portunities with internal strengths. (e strategy encouragessocial welfare crowdfunding industries to use their ownstrengths and seize external opportunities, thus expandingthe entire market scale.

First, it is necessary to seize the precious rising period ofstrategic opportunities, rely on the national support policiesand the convenient and efficient features of the Internet,enhance the popularity of social welfare crowdfunding, andeffectively expand the market share of the industry.

Second, many foreign social welfare crowdfundingplatforms have formed a stable business operation mode[26]. (e authors should take the essence and discard thedross of foreign social welfare crowdfunding platforms. Inthe process of learning and imitating foreign advanceddevelopment experiences, the authors should learn to in-tegrate the commonalities into the actual developmentenvironment of our country to avoid social welfarecrowdfunding deviating from the direction and going astrayand accelerate its development on the right path.

(ird, it should refer to the national initiated policies,play a role in the process of solving the social problemsfocused on by the state, and improve the influence frompoint to area. For example, social welfare crowdfunding canbe combined with targeted poverty alleviation. In the specificpoverty alleviation process, poverty-stricken villages andpoor households shall be specified and subdivided into socialwelfare crowdfunding projects with different characteristicsaccording to the corresponding poverty alleviation route;thus the poverty alleviation goals could eventually beachieved. Social welfare crowdfunding can also take thisopportunity to show multifaceted social values.

4.2. Analysis on Reversal Strategy (WO Strategy). Reversalstrategy refers to a development strategy in which industriesor organizations seize environmental opportunities to re-verse and improve internal defects when they lack strengths.(e strategy encourages social welfare crowdfunding in-dustries to use external opportunities to overcome their ownweaknesses and enhance their core competitiveness.

First, the authors should improve the credibility of theplatform and even the industry by taking quality im-provement of crowdfunding projects as the core and startingwith the project cycle and realizability. Quality is mainlyreflected by the authority of audit and the accuracy of pushedprojects; the lower the proportion of social welfarecrowdfunding projects that are false, exaggerated or seri-ously inconsistent with expectations, the higher the com-prehensive priority of social welfare crowdfunding projectspushed to donors; and the higher the proportion of real andfeasible social welfare crowdfunding projects that achievecrowdfunding goals, the more they can show the high trustof the social welfare crowdfunding platform representedbehind them.

Second, the authors should use new technologies to solveoutstanding problems and eliminate the doubts of all partic-ipants, especially donors who provide funds but are relatively inweak position. For example, many crowdfunding platformshave begun to try to initially apply blockchain technology tosocial welfare scenes at present, in order to realize real-timemonitoring of fund-raising flow. (e tamper-proof nature ofblockchain technology can effectively reduce the crisis ofdistrust triggered by low transparency, which is of great sig-nificance to the development of social welfare crowdfunding.Social welfare funds provided by donors are an importantsource for the realization of social welfare crowdfunding. Ef-fectively ensuring the reasonable legitimacy of the resourceraising and application is conducive to the sound developmentof social welfare crowdfunding.

(ird, the authors should speed up the construction ofrural Internet-related infrastructure, narrow the differencesbetween urban and rural areas, promote regional coordi-nated development in the integration of urban and ruralareas, promote the matching of the supply and demandrelationship between recipients and donations, and form areasonable distribution model.

4.3. Analysis on Diversification Strategy (ST Strategy).Diversification strategy refers to the development strategy inwhich industries or organizations use their own strengths toavoid or mitigate the impact of threats. (e strategy aims tohelp social welfare crowdfunding actively exert its strengthsto deal with possible risks and seek development opportu-nities with a correct attitude.

First, the authors should encourage social welfare crowd-funding projects to “get out of the comfort zone,” promote theemergence of more social welfare crowdfunding projects in newfields and new features, and drive the development of education,senior care, agriculture, science, technology, and other fields thatare also beneficial to the people besides the medical and healthfield. Social welfare crowdfunding should not be limited to thecorner of medical care. (ere are still many emerging marketsthat need to be explored urgently.

Second, the authors should strictly abide by national andlocal epidemic prevention measures and stabilize the currentdevelopment trend of social welfare crowdfunding. At thisstage, the authors should still maintain highly tense epidemicprevention measures (such as measuring body temperaturein and out of public places and wearing masks) and maintainthe current economic development trend, so as to reduce thepossible threat of the epidemic to the development of socialwelfare crowdfunding.

(ird, the authors should pilot system using new tech-nologies multiple times on a small scale and bring it to thesociety after the application is mature. (e launch and pro-motion of the new social welfare crowdfunding system shallnot be achieved overnight. (e process will continue to bebased on the feedback obtained during the pilot, the update andchanges for the broad needs after popularization, and the riskmeasures to deal with the new problems exposed in the future.

Complexity 9

4.4. Analysis on Defensive Strategy (WT Strategy).Defensive strategy refers to the development strategy inwhich industries or organizations take necessary defensivemeasures to reduce disadvantages and avoid threats underthe condition of prominent defects.(e strategy aims to helpsocial welfare crowdfunding to overcome weaknesses andreduce the negative effects of threats, so as to defend insteadof attack and stably pass the initial stage of development.

First, industry-related development strategies shall beformulated and improved.(e current development strategyanalysis is only aimed at the current development of socialwelfare crowdfunding. In the future, there will be new sit-uations and changes in the industry. Employees should beprepared in advance, conduct detailed investigation andresearch, make reasonable conclusions according to theactual development situation, and make judgments.

Second, the social welfare crowdfunding platform needsto strengthen industry management and industry disciplineconstruction [27], which can be realized by establishingindustry associations and formulating industry norms [28].Due to the poor management of charitable organizations,the traditional charity model has lost its due credibility dueto adverse events such as “Guo Meimei Incident” and un-clear flow of epidemic prevention products. (erefore, samemistakes shall not be witnessed again in social welfarecrowdfunding. It is necessary to learn lessons from tradi-tional social welfare and promote fund-raising and fund-using to be more direct, transparent, and strictly stan-dardized, so that the general public can maintain their trustin social welfare crowdfunding and realize that their socialwelfare efforts are worthwhile and rewarding, thus forming avirtuous circle.

(ird, the expected completion cycle of the project shallbe clearly set, to make the progress of the project transparentand enhance the donor’s sense of participation in the project.If donors are blocked and restricted to the fund-raisingprocess, they will not be able to get the real sense of par-ticipation and their sense of experience will be greatly re-duced. (e development process of social welfarecrowdfunding should be synchronized with the process ofenhancing donors’ sense of participation; that is, recipientsneed to set up several important nodes (the platform canprovide relevant help) to show donors the progress of projectimplementation. (rough peer-to-peer interaction, this be-havior will greatly increase donors’ sense of substitution andmeet their spiritual needs for donation behavior. At the sametime, in this process, the openness and transparency of theproject will be improved in repeated presentations, and therelatively weak position of donors will be changed as well.

5. Conclusion

On the basis of the development status and research trendsof social welfare crowdfunding in China, this paper appliesPEST-SWOT model to analyze the external environmentand internal resources of social welfare crowdfunding in-dustry in China in detail from multiple perspectives andelaborates a complete and in-depth understanding of socialwelfare crowdfunding.

In accordance with the research, although there are stillmany weaknesses and threats of development in the wholeindustry of social welfare crowdfunding, it is the existence ofthese unfavorable links that can enable social welfarecrowdfunding to define the correct direction of efforts andthe way forward, form a logical development strategyaccording to its own strengths and future developmentopportunities, apply feasible theories to practice, and trulyplay its due value.

Data Availability

(e data presented in this study are available upon requestfrom the corresponding author.

Conflicts of Interest

(e authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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Complexity 11