Rather Than One-off Donation
The Federation of Korean Industries announced on September 26 that 225 major companies in South Korea spent a total of 2.902 trillion won (US$2.59 billion) for social contribution purposes last year to show a year-on-year growth of 6.8% along with a positive growth in two years.
53.3% of the companies increased their expenditures for the purpose while 13.3% maintained similar amounts between 2014 and 2015. 27.1% of them increased their spending for the purpose by at least 25% compared to 2014. Expenditures for the underprivileged accounted for 33.5% of the total spending, up four percentage points from a year ago.
Each of 67.6% of the companies launched at least one new social contribution project in 2015 and the number of such projects launched last year added up to 220. Customized education programs for future generations took up the largest portion of the projects.
78.3% and 18.9% of them maintained and increased the number of employees in charge of corporate social responsibility activities, respectively. Meanwhile, only 2.8% reduced the number of such employees. 61.8% of those activities were planned with specific purposes by the companies themselves whereas simple and one-off donation represented 38.2%.