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| As COVID-19 cases spike in the country, people have been generous in their donations to charities to aid virus victims. Yonhap |
By Lee Gyu-lee, Dong Sun-hwa
Legions of Koreans have donated cash to help in the nationwide battle against the coronavirus (COVID-19). The total of their contributions to the two flagship charity organizations here ― the Hope Bridge Korea Disaster Relief Association and the Community Chest of Korea ― is more than 150 billion won ($116 million), according to data from the organizations.
But both institutions revealed they had spent only a third of the money.
Hope Bridge told The Korea Times that, as of March 17, it had used 30.9 billion won ($24.5 million) out of 90 billion won ($71.3 million) to support virus-hit people and regions. The Community Chest of Korea said it had spent 21 billion won ($16.6 million) out of 62.5 billion won ($49.5 million), as of March 15.
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| The charts show the percentage of completed and in-progress donations made by the two charity organizations. |
Such a low distribution rate has raised concerns with people on whether their donations are being put to the best use. These worries have sparked a national petition on Cheong Wa Dae's official website, calling for a detailed process of allocation. As of Tuesday, over 13,400 people had joined the petition.
"People seem to cast doubt as the distribution takes longer than they expect, but the charities may not be solely responsible for the delay," Roh Yeon-hee, a professor of social welfare at the Catholic University of Korea in Gyeonggi Province, said in an email interview with The Korea Times.
Kang Chul-hee, a social welfare professor at Yonsei University, said the charities' current structures ― such as sharing data on needs, measures of available resources and actual distribution ― are too vague to hasten the distribution process.
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| A donation summary for the Hope Bridge Korea Disaster Relief Association. |
Distribution process
"Hope Bridge uses the donations to purchase relief aid and sends it to the regions based on the priorities," the association's spokeswoman told The Korea Times. "We frequently conduct a survey in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, checking the demands from each region."
She added: "We have a post on our website specifying our spending. We disclose how many masks or other relief products we purchased and which regions they were sent to. The post is updated at 3 p.m. (KST) every day and is also available on our social media."
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| A donation summary for the Community Chest of Korea, as of Mar. 15. |
Unlike Hope Bridge, the Community Chest of Korea raises funds through regional branches as well as the central headquarters. Funds are allocated through appropriate organizations for distribution, along with in-kind donations.
The organization's marketing manager told The Korea Times that it uses various channels ― such as recruiting institutions through a special web portal ― to divide funds by the regions.
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| The Minister of the Interior and Safety Chin Young, left, gives a briefing on coronavirus prevention measures to President Moon Jae-in at Cheong Wa Dae on Mar. 10. Courtesy of Cheong Wa Dae |
The charity organizations meet the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and municipal governments twice a week to share current demands, resources and how donations are being used.
"As every region needs the aid, we are trying to obtain the demand and needs of each municipal government through cooperation," the Community Chest marketing manager said.
How to enhance efficiency
But experts say the cooperation leaves room for inefficiency in such a time of crisis.
"Technically speaking, Community Chest and Red Cross ― major NPOs ― operated under the Ministry of Health and Welfare," Kang said. "So, in this case, coordination under the safety ministry might not be effective."
He said the Prime Minister's Secretariat, which can handle governmental organizations, should step in. "Under the governmental control tower, institutions should come together to set priorities and assign roles," he said.
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| The Hope Bridge Korea Disaster Relief Association sent relief goods for coronavirus-hit people. Yonhap |
Bringing up "collective impact" ― an idea of cross-sector coordination, coined from Stanford Social Innovation ― the professor said the current situation demanded such an agenda. The idea refers to a structured form, which brings actors from different sectors to collectively commit to solving a specific social problem.
"In this time of national emergency, every governmental office, private organizations, and citizens should come together to form a co-working system," Kang said.
While some people also doubt the charities' transparency, the experts say they are "quite transparent."
Kang said: "The Korean government, the National Assembly and The Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) manage and supervise these institutions. Thus, they usually do not have a huge drawback concerning transparency."
Roh agreed, saying: "Most of them meet the minimum criteria for transparency in terms of information disclosure, interaction with donators and overall performance."
