Tencent lends helping hand to needy

"People are increasingly turning to mobile phones to make donations. Donating to charity has become easier and more convenient," he said.

Chen admitted that a lack of trust, however, remained a problem in promoting charitable causes in China.

"Sometimes donors do not know where their money goes or whether it is spent properly. Transparency in the process is the foundation of establishing trust," Chen noted.

In a hall inside the Tencent building, a number of charitable programs are on display.

"The Brightest Tomorrow" is one of them. The project aims to improve lighting for students in rural areas by calling on people to delete unnecessary e-mails.

"Many useless e-mails occupy our storage space and cause waste in terms of financial and human resources. We've set up a team to work on this, which takes time and money. We should save the money to improve lighting for those rural students," said a supporter of the project.

Jiao Dongzi, a photographer and also a charity supporter, launched a program which focused on taking photos free-of-charge for elderly people in poverty-stricken western areas.

"Some old people have never been able to take a single photo in their life. The photo we take for them sometimes becomes their first and last photo," Jiao said.

"No matter how dilapidated the place we go to or how tired we are, we feel what we have done is worthwhile when we see how happy these elderly people are."