What the Early Failure of the "University Student Mutual Aid Society" Taught KangAi Commune

University students are a caring group. When a classmate or teacher falls seriously ill, people are usually willing to give generously and donate to help. But one puzzling phenomenon stands out: in our early years we worked hard to promote the "University Student Mutual Aid Society," yet it never took off. (At that time, mutual aid was booming and had not been affected by the wave of shutdowns.)

Why are university students who are willing to donate to help others unwilling to join an organization where they could help one another over the long term?

This phenomenon deserves serious reflection from KangAi Commune, because it reveals a fundamental difference between charitable donation and long-term mutual aid.

First, compassion can inspire a single donation, but it cannot necessarily sustain long-term mutual aid.

When a classmate is seriously ill, everyone can see his hardship and feel his pain; donating is a direct emotional response.

Joining a mutual aid society is entirely different. It means continuously sharing costs for risks that have not yet occurred, helping people one may never meet, and not knowing how long that obligation will last.

The former depends on being moved, the latter requires reason; the former is a one-time act of kindness, the latter is a long-term responsibility.

University students are not short of compassion. They are simply young and healthy, with little felt sense of their own risk of serious illness, and little incentive to bear cost-sharing over the long run.

Second, being willing to help others does not mean being willing to join a mutual aid system.

Donating to a classmate you know usually rests on trust among the school, the teachers and the students. Joining a mutual aid organization that spans different regions requires trusting strangers, trusting the rules, trusting the platform, and believing that you will be treated fairly if hardship comes to you.

Especially in an environment of generally low social trust, building a small community for long-term mutual aid is in fact far harder than organizing a single donation.

This reminds us that goodwill does not translate directly into trust, and trust certainly cannot be won by publicity alone.

More importantly, KangAi Commune must not overestimate the role of compassion in a mutual aid system.

We used to assume easily that as long as people are caring, mutual aid would grow. But the experience of the University Student Mutual Aid Society reminds us that compassion, precious as it is, is emotional, occasional and selective.

The fact that someone is willing to donate 100 yuan today to help another person does not mean he is willing to keep contributing a few yuan a month for the next ten years.

This is not a moral problem; it is normal human nature.

So KangAi Commune cannot stake its long-term development on members endlessly giving out of kindness, still less conclude that members lack the spirit of mutual aid just because they care about how much they contribute, compare the value of the coverage, or even choose to leave.

Truly sustainable mutual aid must make helping others and protecting oneself the same thing.

Members join KangAi Commune not necessarily out of selfless dedication, but to add a layer of risk protection for themselves and their families. As long as the rules are fair, the cost-sharing is reasonable and the mutual aid has value, they have a reason to keep taking part.

And the contributions they bear for their own protection are precisely what helps other members who have met with misfortune.

This is where institutionalized mutual aid is most vital: it does not demand that everyone be selfless, yet it lets ordinary people help one another while pursuing their own interests.

This in turn sets higher demands on how KangAi Commune is run.

We must pay more attention to the reasonableness of cost-sharing and prevent unfair cross-subsidies from eroding members' confidence; pay more attention to case disclosure and financial transparency, so that every mutual-aid contribution can stand up to scrutiny; pay more attention to the fairness and stability of the rules, so that members know clearly their rights, their responsibilities and the conditions for leaving; and keep raising the real value of mutual aid instead of relying on sentiment alone to retain members.

The University Student Mutual Aid Society failed to develop, of course, for other reasons too — campus organizations are hard to sustain, students have limited income, and they move away after graduation — so it cannot simply be put down to a lack of compassion. But the warning it gives us is very clear:

Compassion can bring a mutual aid organization into being; only fairness, trust and a sound mechanism of interests can keep it alive over the long term.

KangAi Commune needs to cherish compassion but must not depend on it; it needs to promote the spirit of mutual aid but must not demand too much of human nature.

A good mutual aid system does not require everyone to be a selfless saint; it lets ordinary people, out of their own reasonable needs, be willing to help one another over the long term.

That, perhaps, is the fundamental reason KangAi Commune can go further and last longer.