Mirae Asset Park Hyeon Joo Foundation

Mirae Asset Park Hyeon Joo Foundation is a private foundation based in Mirae Asset Center 1 Building, Seoul, South Korea. The foundation was founded in 2000 by Hyeon Joo Park, a founder and GSO of Mirae Asset Financial Group. The primary purpose of the foundation is aiding scholarship for exchange programs to college students located in South Korea.

History
In 2000, the Mirae Asset Park Hyeon Joo Foundation was established with Byeon Hyeong Yoon as president. That same year, the Domestic Scholarship Program was initiated. In 2003, the "Book of Hope" Study Rooms Campaign was launched. In 2007, a selection of students was made for the Global Cultural Experience Group, an international exchange student program. In 2008, the "I Love You" Donation Campaign was undertaken, and in 2009 the foundation received the Seoul Mayor's Award for contributions to child welfare. In 2011, the "1% of Sharing and Hope" campaign was launched. In 2012, Lee Gi Su was appointed as the foundation's 2nd president and the Mirae Asset grant matching program was started. In 2013, the foundation organized "Full of Hope," a book donation drive. In 2014, the foundation was appointed as a "sound non-profit organization," and implemented a youth financial career training program. In 2016, the foundation commenced the "Youth Vision Project", a series of reading workshops and programs. In 2018, Chung-un Chan was appointed the foundation's 3rd president and the number of students receiving benefits from the foundation's scholarship program reached 8,000. The foundation received an award from the Minister of Health and Welfare for supporting local children's centers that same year. In 2022, Jang Yong Seong was appointed the foundation's 4th president. The number of participants in the foundation's "talent fostering programs" reached 400,000 in 2023

Major Programs
Under the vision that ‘Mirae Asset will be the hope of the youth’, Mirae Asset operates programs primarily aiming at scholarships, social welfare and culture of sharing. Through scholarships and social welfare programs, the number of participants in nurturing talents has reached 440,000 (as of May 2024).

Global Exchange Scholarship Program
As being the largest overseas exchange student scholarship program in Korea, the foundation supports 500 students annually with their academic expenses. Undergraduate students who have met the criteria of the foundation's assessments in grades and their financial status of their 4-year university courses, are selected as the exchange students, which have accumulated to 6,963 students.

Global Cultural Experience Program
The foundation has been supporting children and youth on 3 nights and 4 day camping excursions to China in order to broaden their knowledge and perspective to ultimately set up their lifetime goal. This program supports students to experience various cultures with different nationalities through traveling. The global cultural exchange program includes experiencing daily local life, understanding their history and visiting information technology sites. The program is provided biannually to 100 participants at a time reaching 1,968.

Book Donation “My Own Dream Library”
The foundation encourages children to discover the fun and value of reading by helping them curate their own personal libraries. The foundation provides children with My Own Dream Library kits (bookshelves, a small individual sign, individual recommended books considering each student's living conditions, interests and the level of reading, etc.) setting them on a journey of discovery through books. The program provided a total of 2,701 people, about 900 at a time (since 2021).

Youth Vision Project
The foundation offers ‘Make Experience Program’ to facilitate young teenagers to enhance their flexible and creative thinking skill in this disruptive era. The curriculum supports each participant to engage in the entire process of problem-solving from planning, designing, producing to implementing by utilizing coding, 3D printing, and robotic technologies based on ‘Design Thinking’ process, which is a creative problem-solving methodology.

Culture of Sharing
The foundation supports various programs through interactive collaboration with Mirae Asset subsidiaries, and its executives and employees. They may take part in donations through diverse ways. In turn, each subsidiary contributes the matching amount of the donations made by its executives and employees to the foundation to support the program.


 * Mirae Asset 1% Hope Sharing Campaign: executives of Mirae Asset donate 1% of their monthly salar
 * Periodical Donation 'I Love You' Campaign: Mirae Asset employees donate a fixed amount every month.
 * Matching Grant Campaign of subsidiaries: 1:1 Matching Grant Campaign where the company donates the matching amount of donations made by executive or employees of subsidiarie
 * Entire Dividend Donation by Park Hyeon Joo (Founder and Mirae Asset GSO): Park Hyeon Joo established the foundation with his own wealth worth of KRW 7.5 billion in 2000. He has been donating the entire dividends to the foundation for the young talents of Korea since 2010.

Awards

 * 2009 Mayor of Seoul Award, Children and Welfare Sector
 * 2016 Kyunghyang Finance Education, Chief of Financial Services Commission Award
 * 2018 Minister of Health and Welfare Award, Regional Children's Center Support Sector
 * 2019 KCCI (Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry) Forbes CSR Award, Children and Youth Welfare Sector

Reception
The foundation received a perfect score in transparency and financial stability evaluation for non-profit foundations according to Guide Star Korea, based on its performance at the end of 2023.