Meituan does more than food delivery. The brand has also been hard at work rolling out playgrounds across rural China. In a five-year report released this week, Meituan’s Rural Children’s Playground (美团乡村儿童操场) scheme – launched with One Foundation – has announced it has supported the construction of 4,535 children’s playgrounds across China.
The playgrounds are multifunctional and come with equipment and teacher training in rural, largely underdeveloped regions of China. The project is no small feat either. The 611,000 rural children directly benefitting from the campaign make it one of China’s largest preschool-focussed charity programmes by scale and coverage.
Launched in August 2020, Meituan’s model is built around micro-donations and broad participation. Unlike the one-off type donations of many large organisations, Meituan scales its campaign through platform mechanics. Merchants and users of Meituan functions contribute small amounts, but repeatedly enough that the numbers scale.
That matters. With this system, charity is turned into something closer to a supply chain. It is predictable. It can be replicated. It’s easily measurable. Meituan said the programme has been supported by 1.81 million participating merchants and 1.46 million online donors. In other words, Meituan is converting platform participation into public welfare.
Meituan’s Rural Children’s Playground: The bigger picure
The history shows how quickly that system has compounded. Meituan’s Rural Children’s Playground scheme reached 1,276 playgrounds by the end of 2023, before accelerating to 2,517 by November 2024. That growth curve suggests the campaign has moved beyond CSR optics into a mature operating phase.
Meituan’s parallel focus on teacher training is also strategic. Rural preschool education is not only about access, but quality. By supporting the personnel that really make an impact, the scheme can position itself as supporting outcomes, not just construction.
For Meituan, the scheme is undoubtedly a win. It shows that public welfare can work at platform scale. It adds to that win a policy-aligned investment at a time when rural revitalisation remains a national priority.
