Charity donor stays anonymous for 23 years

A letter containing money orders sent from a mysterious donor received by the Ningbo Charity Federation. [Photo/Ningbo Charity Foundation]

After over two decades, the identity of a person who has donated anonymously every year to the Ningbo Charity Foundation has remained shrouded in mystery.

The charity organization in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang province, received an envelope on Monday with a stack of money orders worth over 1 million yuan ($156,600).

It is the 23rd year in a row the mysterious donor has sent money orders to the federation.

According to Chen Yunjin, director of the federation, the mysterious donor first sent a sum of money to the federation in 1999 with a slip attached reading, shun qi zi ran, which means "let things take their own course."

Since then, the anonymous donor was referred to as "Shun qi zi ran" by federation staff.

Chen said each money order is worth no more than 10,000 yuan – because otherwise the order has to be signed with the donor's real name according to bank rules.

"At the beginning, we tried to find out who he or she is. But obviously he or she did not want to be known. So we respected his or her wishes and gave up," Chen said.

So far, the mysterious donor has donated a total of 13.63 million yuan to the federation. All the money donated has been used to help students in need or for other educational purposes, Chen said.

In recent years, more and more people in Ningbo have followed the steps of "Shun qi zi ran", and these anonymous donors have altogether given more than 50 million yuan to the federation.