Samsung Group employees to donate $22.4 mln to charity

Samsung Group employees will donate a combined 25.7 billion won (22.47 million U.S. dollars) to charity from next year.

Following their year-end donation campaign last week, Samsung employees pledged a combined 1.07 billion won (935,000 dollars) per month from next year. The conglomerate will also donate the same amount under its “matching grant” rule, pushing up the monthly donation amount to 2.14 billion won (1.9 million dollars).

In annual terms, the donation amount will reach 25.7 billion won (22.47 million dollars).

Separately, Samsung donates 20 billion won (17 million dollars) to the charity group Community Chest of Korea at the end of each year.

Samsung employees have been donating a combined 770 million won (673,000 dollars) a month to senior citizen and childcare facilities. Combining this, their monthly donation amount will increase to 1.07 billion won (935,000 dollars).

In addition, 141,000 of the conglomerate’s employees will make donations, accounting for 71 percent of the group’s 198,000 employees and up from 132,000 (66 percent). Per capita donation will reach 91,000 won (80 dollars) per year.

Korea’s personal donation rate was 32.3 percent last year, according to Statistics Korea.

The charity drive by the Samsung workforce started in 1994, when an employee at Samsung SDS proposed a voluntary employee donation of 1,000 won from monthly wages to help poor children.

In the latest donation campaign, employees at the company`s headquarters in Suwon held a separate event to donate goats to Niger. A combined 9,656 employees participated in the event and left comments on a corner made on a Web site.

The company pledged financial support according to the number of comments, and based on the donation amount plus that pitched in by the company, 2,414 goats were sent to the African country.

sublime@donga.com