It is a welcome development that a growing number of Korean individuals and corporations are choosing to donate to charities. As the year comes to an end, more donations will be made to help those in need.
A particular form of donation preferred by Koreans is to be twinned with a certain recipient ― usually a child. It is not rare for a group of Korean salaried workers to visit a village in Africa during their vacations to meet children they have supported. Sometimes at schools here a teacher shows his or her students pictures of a smiling child living in a faraway land, whom they have collected money to help.
Matching benefactors with certain beneficiaries can be an effective way of encouraging charity donations. More than 70 percent of donations through major nongovernmental organizations in Korea are meant to provide one-to-one support for designated children.
A recent study by a local charity organization, however, indicates that this practice is undesirable from the viewpoint of young beneficiaries. Good-looking children are more likely to be chosen as recipients, with other kids who are left without a supporter feeling deprived and hopeless, according to the study based on interviews with a dozen Korean charity workers.
An effective method of inducing more people to give donations may lose its relevance if it results in spreading a sense of alienation and discrimination among peer groups. This is one of the “ethical dilemmas” cited by charity fund-raising experts surveyed in a report released by the Beautiful Foundation last week.
In principle, beneficiaries should not be revealed in public for the protection of their privacy. But charity fund-raisers are often tempted to disclose photos of recipients to produce a more compelling and sympathetic image.
They also feel conflicted when they have to decide whether to take large donations from big businesses whose moral principles have come under severe public criticism.
Charity organizations may become embroiled in controversy if they seek to take a role in confronting social problems. Some charity officials become frustrated with being compelled to maintain neutrality on sensitive matters related to their values to avoid negative effects on their fund-raising activities.
The study on the ethical dilemmas that complicate charity work, the first of its kind in Korea, needs to be fully reviewed as it offers useful clues on how to further promote and refine the culture of giving in the country.
One of the immediate suggestions seems to be that Korean individual donors should reconsider their overwhelming preference for designated child recipients. It may be more desirable to collect individual donations in some funding pools targeted at specific peer groups or communities in need at home and abroad.
Practicality may be placed ahead of morality to a certain degree to raise more charity funds. Regardless of what personal values charity workers may have, they are obliged to keep their distance from issues susceptible to ideological and partisan views.
