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In South Korea, Policy Determines the Expansion and Contraction of the Social Impact Ecosystem

  When I first started working as a journalist in the social impact field, I thought — based only on what I saw on the surface — that social impact organizations such as social economy enterprises and social innovation companies had grown this much because of their unique ideas, their passion for contributing to solving social problems, and their horizontal and innovative ways of doing business rather than traditional top-down approaches.   However, once I actually started reporting and looked into materials about the social impact ecosystem, I realized that was not everything. Even with the same values and business, depending on how policies are applied, they could expand or shrink. They are also heavily influenced by the government in power, and at the local level, they are affected by ordinances.   In today’s post, I will write about how policy plays a role in the expansion and development of Korea’s social impact ecosystem.   🐶Policy plays a role in ...

Analyzing Korea’s Social Impact Ecosystem Through a Newsletter

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  In my previous post, I explored the role of newsletters in Korea’s social impact sector.   <Read the previous post> The Power of Newsletters in Connecting the Social Impact Ecosystem   Among the examples introduced, one of the most representative is Orange Letter, a leading newsletter in the field.   Orange Letter is a weekly newsletter that curates information across the social sector — including nonprofits, social enterprises, social ventures, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. It covers job postings, news, educational programs, events, and fundraising campaigns. Most of its content is gathered through community submissions and compiled into a structured format.   Since its launch in June 2018, the newsletter has been consistently delivering updates from the social impact sector for eight years. It now has approximately 25,000 subscribers.   The newsletter is published by My Orange, an impact-tech startup. O...

The Power of Newsletters in Connecting the Social Impact Ecosystem

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  We truly live in an age of information overload. Through news outlets, social media, and countless platforms, we are constantly exposed to an overwhelming amount of content. In Korea especially, where IT infrastructure is highly advanced, it takes less than a second to find the information we need on a smartphone.   The social impact sector is no exception. A vast amount of news and information is produced every day. Reflecting on my time as a journalist, whenever I covered a specific event and wrote an article, numerous similar articles would appear at once. This was because many reporters attended the same event, and media coverage was often based on press releases distributed by the organizers.   In such an environment, it becomes surprisingly difficult to identify the information that truly matters. (As a journalist, I had to process far more information than most people. There were days when I wished someone would simply curate everything I needed to read.)...