Letters | Spread the joy in Hong Kong: donate your HK$10,000 handout

The combined happiness level of those who pledged their HK$10,000 handout and recipients of their kindness in a pilot scheme was significantly higher than if those who did not really need the cash held on to it

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The Chinese and Hong Kong flags fly near the HSBC (left) and Standard Chartered buildings. Participating banks in Hong Kong will start accepting registrations for the government’s HK$10,000 cash payout scheme on June 21. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 7:00am, 16 Jun 2020Updated: 7:00am, 16 Jun 2020

At last, the government’s one-off cash handouts of HK$10,000 to an estimated 7 million adult permanent Hong Kong residents is ready for distribution. We took the initiative to launch a pilot study inviting 35 individuals who were willing to pre-donate their HK$10,000 handout to needy families recommended by school principals. The donors were informed where the money went, and recipients sent a thank-you note to the donors to increase the connectedness between the two.

Before the handout was announced, there was almost no difference in the happiness levels of donors and recipients, with the former rating their happiness at 5.2 and the latter at 5.0, on a scale of 1 to 10. After the government’s announcement of the handout, the happiness levels of donors and recipients increased to 5.6 and 7.7, respectively.

With the additional HK$10,000 campaign, the happiness levels of donors and recipients increased to 8.2 and 8.3 respectively. If the original recipients had kept the handout instead of sharing it, the combined satisfaction level would only be 13.3, whereas, with this scheme, it was 16.5. It seems that a win-win situation has been achieved.

The gain for the donor is marginal, but the impact on the needy family is significant. When we asked donors how they would spend the HK$10,000 if they did not donate it, the items they listed were expendable and consumable. The items that the recipients listed were essentials.

Eighty-five per cent of donors felt that “others needing the money more” was one of the major reasons they chose to participate in the programme.

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What we have learned from this pilot study is that the overall happiness level can be increased if those that already have enough are willing to share. It is encouraging that the pilot study has been taken to a new stage with the support of the Lok Sin Tong Society, which volunteered to handle the administrative work involved in collecting the donation and distributing it to families in need.