“In 2021, declaring his intention to donate and establishing a foundation, he contributed 48 billion won to support science, technology, and education.
The cumulative personal donation amount of Brian Kim, the chairman of Kakao’s Management Innovation Committee, who announced his intention to donate half of his wealth, has exceeded 100 billion won. According to the Bryan Impact Foundation’s website on the 27th, Kim’s total donations have been tallied at 101 billion won. It was reported that he surpassed 100 billion won by donating 200,000 shares of Kakao stock to the Bryan Impact on the 14th.
The area where he donated the most was in strengthening social infrastructure, such as science, technology, education, and culture, contributing nearly half of the total at 48 billion won. Additionally, he donated 29 billion won for nurturing talent and creating ecosystems to resolve social issues, and 24 billion won to support vulnerable groups such as the disabled, children, and adolescents, as well as disaster relief and medical fields.
Kim began contributing to society in 2007, starting with a donation to his alma mater, Konkuk University High School, and has continued for over 15 years. In 2021, he officially announced his commitment to donate more than half of his assets to resolve social issues and sold Kakao stocks worth about 500 billion won to establish the public foundation, ‘Bryan Impact,’ within the same year. Under Kim’s policy of establishing a foundation to identify and support innovators actively tackling social issues, Bryan Impact is currently conducting projects such as ‘Impact Ground’ and ‘Bryan Fellow,’ which support social innovators.
In March of the same year, he also became the 220th person to pledge support for the voluntary donation movement ‘The Giving Pledge,’ initiated by Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, and Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. At that time, Kim’s wealth valuation exceeded 13.5 trillion won due to the rise in Kakao stock prices.
Despite facing various difficulties such as standing trial for stock manipulation allegations, Kim has consistently continued his charitable activities. A Kakao representative stated, ‘We plan to continue our commitment to fulfill social responsibilities through consistent donations’ and ‘We will do our utmost to ensure that the donations are used most efficiently and in alignment with the donor’s intentions by carefully reviewing various social initiatives and projects.'”