The Love Temperature Tower at '65 Degrees' Lukewarm... More Warmth Needed

Growing Distrust in Donation Organizations Amid Pessimistic Economic Outlook

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-gi] Although the year-end cold wave that swept across the country has eased, the mercury of the 'Love Thermometer' shows little sign of rising. Pessimistic economic forecasts and distrust of donation organizations are overlapping, causing the overall donation culture to shrink.

According to the Community Chest of Korea, as of the 2nd, the mercury of the 'Love Thermometer' installed at Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul stands at 65 degrees. The campaign, which began on November 20 last year, runs until the 31st of this month, and so far, 2.765 billion won, which is 65% of this year's target amount of 4.257 billion won, has been collected.

This figure is significantly lower compared to last year. On December 31, 2018, the Love Thermometer recorded 71.2 degrees. The date of achieving the target amount has also been delayed each year. In 2017, the thermometer reached 100.3 degrees on January 25, achieving the target amount early. In 2018 and 2019, it exceeded 100 degrees on the last day of the campaign, January 31, for two consecutive years. This year, if this pace continues, it is expected that achieving the target within the period will be difficult.

The background of the shrinking donation culture is largely due to the loss of trust in donation organizations following incidents such as the 2017 'Eogeumni Dad Lee Young-hak case' and the embezzlement case of the nonprofit organization 'Saehimang Seed.' Added to this is the pessimistic economic outlook, which has led to a decrease in donation activities. In 2018, the total number of individuals who donated to the Community Chest of Korea was 786,500, but last year it sharply decreased to 520,154. Jeon Hyun-kyung, a specialist at the Donation Culture Research Institute, said, "One factor seems to be the increase in various forms of donations throughout the year, not just during the year-end and New Year holidays, especially among younger generations." The specialist added, "Looking at the donation participation rate over the past 10 years, it has not recovered since a sharp decline in 2014. It appears that the change in tax benefits related to donations from income deduction to tax credit at that time had a significant impact."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.