2021

In 2021, to mark the 20th anniversry of its establishment, Daum Foundation re-established its mission/vision to include the Foundation’s role and direction over the next five years. The Nonprofit Startup Incubation Project and Dongnakga, both on their second years, gained increased recognition through internal improvements. High responses from participants reaffirmed the grounds for Change-on Conference and D.MZ.

The second generation of the Nonprofit Startup Incubation Project, which selects nonprofit startups in the early stages and supports them with operational costs, office space, and training for six months, was successfully completed. Two of the startups received follow-up support to drive their business and organizational growth. Recruitment for the third generation garnered an equally high amount of interest as last year, and seven teams have been working together since last October. Daum, with its accumulated expertise, provided necessary support such as pilot project planning and operation, and helped establish organizational structure for the startups.

“Through a free lease from the Babo Nanum Foundation, Daum Foundation has been managing Dongnakga, a ‘space for nonprofit activists’, setting up office space for 16 nonprofit startups to kickoff their activities and build their organizations in a stable setting in their early stages. Even under the limited circumstances due to COVID-19, over 1,000 nonprofit stakeholders safely used the space for office occupancy, program participation, and collaborative discussions. Dongnakga also continued to carry out promotional activities(instagram, media exposure, etc.) to brand itself as a space for exclusively nonprofit purposes.”

In order to help nonprofit activists in their 20s and 30s find their drive to continue working in the nonprofit sector, D.MZ, a peer group networking program, was jointly planned and conducted with Jungbu Foundation. About 50 activists in their 20s and 30s who work at local community welfare centers, intermediate support organizations, and civic groups participated. They were able to share honest stories about the work and life of MZ generation activists using the program’s spatial concept of ‘Disarment Zone for the MZ generation’.

Due to COVID-19, a large-scale conference of about 500 participants was held online for the first time in Change-on’s history. Under the theme ‘nonprofits becoming healthy again’, the conference explored the direction nonprofits should take in this highly volatile and unstable time. The 2021 Change-on online conference consisted of no-moderator opening ceremony, a surprise special performance, various lectures, abundant snacks and souvenirs, and a closing ceremony, with about 96% of participants responding ‘very satisfied’ or ‘satisfied’, and about 96% willing to participate again in the evaluation survey. Change-on@ was held in the form of small offline programs where nonprofit and media stories of each region were shared.

Daum Foundation supported 21 human rights organizations from various fields through the sponsorship of Open Society Foundation. During the project period, urgent human rights issues emerged in various areas such as gender, immigration, and housing rights, and the activities of the participating organizations in the project were notable in furthuring the social discussions of those issues. In the hope that various types of support will be provided stably in the human rights field in the future, Daum conducted case studies and content production to inform the achievements of this project.