KT&G and “Happy Bean”, a donation portal of Naver, collaborated to open “Sangsang Fund Donation Market”, a website in which the employees can choose the donation beneficiary by a single click.

KT&G posts some stories of potential beneficiaries given by Happy Bean on the donation market opened at KT&G’s internal website, and the employees can choose stories and donate 10,000 won per click to the selected beneficiaries. Happy Bean collects stories from 20 social welfare institutions such as National Disaster Relief Association and Dong-Bang Social Welfare Society, and every month it chooses 10 stories to be given to KT&G. The beneficiaries are those who urgently need help, such as patients of incurable diseases, impoverished households, and overseas relief organizations.

The funds are raised by the Sangsang Fund, to which KT&G employees donate part of their salaries and KT&G adds an equal amount of money to the fund. The more money the employees donate, the more “clicks”, or donations, can be allocated to the beneficence.

On the other hand, since 2013, KT&G has been operating its “Petition for Donation Program”, in which the employees discover donation cases and ask for help. This program is KT&G’s unique donation program. On the company intranet, the employees post stories of neighbours who are undergoing hardships, and if more than 200 people like and comment on a story, that story would be adopted. Through this program, 155 million won in total has been given to 23 distressed neighbours.

KT&G will foster philanthropy through its “Donation Market” and “Petition for Donation Program”. A KT&G official said, “Active participation in the donation process rather than simple donation of money will improve the employee’s enthusiasm and sense of fulfillment. This collaboration with Naver Happy Bean will be an opportunity for us to further try new, differentiated corporate social responsibility activities”.