Woowa Brothers CEO announces plans for first 40 billion won in donations

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Woowa Brothers CEO announces plans for first 40 billion won in donations

Kim Bong-jin, right, founder and CEO of Woowa Brothers and his wife Sul Bo-mi. [WOOWA BROTHERS]

Kim Bong-jin, right, founder and CEO of Woowa Brothers and his wife Sul Bo-mi. [WOOWA BROTHERS]

Woowa Brothers founder and CEO Kim Bong-jin will provide 40 billion won ($35.3 million) in donations for small food-business owners, their families and students in need.
 
This is the first detailed plan Kim put out as part of his commitment to The Giving Pledge, a campaign started in 2010 by 40 billionaires including Microsoft founder Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffett.  
 
Last month, Kim announced he would donate half of his assets, estimated at around 500 billion won, to society and became the first Korean to join the initiative.
 
For food-business owners, 20 billion won of personal funding will be operated over a five-year period.
 
Half, or 10 billion won, will support food business owners whose livelihoods are in jeopardy due to accidents or illnesses.
 
The other 10 billion won will go towards supporting the education fees of their children.
 
“There are a lot of college scholarship opportunities these days, but a lot of food business owners still find it difficult to fund their children's education in domestic and overseas universities,” Kim wrote in a Facebook post addressed from him and his wife, Sul Bo-mi, on Friday.
 
Grants will be given regardless of whether the business is registered on Woowa’s food delivery app, Baedal Minjok.
 
Kim promised to donate an additional 20 billion won to provide recent models of laptops to students of underprivileged households, saying the old computers some of them use were hindering their studies at home. Samsung Electronics’ Ion and LG Electronics’ Gram laptops would be provided with help from both companies, he added.
 
“For our first donation to society, we decided to help support the fight against educational disparity and help small food businesses,” Kim said.  
 
“A lot of people are giving us ideas, but realistically there are limits to the impact we can make alone. For now, we will keep studying areas we’ve offered support to in the past, like education, the elderly living alone and medical care for deliverymen.”
 
On Thursday, the Woowa founder announced a big stock grant worth around 100 billion won to all employees including gig workers. The stock compensation to some 2,100 workers was to come from his own holdings in Delivery Hero, a German delivery app that acquired Kim’s company.
 
BY SONG KYOUNG-SON   [song.kyoungson@joongang.co.kr]
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