Helping people in need and promoting socially responsible SMEs
The KBIZ Love Sharing Foundation is a non-profit charity founded by the KBIZ (Korea Federation of SMEs) in 2012 in order to promote sharing culture home and abroad. Both KBIZ and the KBIZ Love Sharing Foundation co-held the 2nd KBIZ Awards for SME Heroes at Lotte Hotel Jeju on June 21 and rewarded great contributors to development of Korean SMEs and of sharing culture. The foundation, on one hand, supports small business owners and low income families as well as underprivileged (disabled, elderly living alone and child head of household etc.) in our society through various donation and scholarship programs and, on the other hand, promotes socially responsible SMEs. Some of the worth mentioning programs run by the foundation are 1) supporting local welfare centers 2) traditional market voucher 3) Dream Scholarship 4) Dream Medical Support 5) volunteer activities 6) campaigns to secure public recognition of SMEs. 

Korean SMEs grow together with society by sharing
The KBIZ Love Sharing Foundation is run by its strict transparency policy. All funds, donations and any kinds of collecting and giving out are transparently managed and open to the public. Also, the foundation confers Sharing Plaque and Gift to those who sponsor more than 5 million won ($4,432 US dollars) a year. The foundation issues an in-house newsletter <9988 Love Sharing>on a regular basis to update what is going on and constantly finds and rewards model cases of social contributions. The 2nd KBIZ Awards for SME Heroes co-held by the KBIZ was part of these efforts. Seo Suck-hong, who lately inaugurated as the 3rd chairman of the KBIZ Love Sharing Foundation said “99% of the Korean businesses are either small or medium size. Naturally, 88% are employees of SMEs and 66% of the whole populations are family members of SMEs. What it tells is that they are the ones who have actually made a great contribution to building Korea as successful as today. In this respect, the role of the KBIZ and the KBIZ Love Sharing Foundation is becoming more important than ever and we will keep doing our very best in creating better environments for SMEs and socially vulnerable.”