When South Korean rapper Psy hit the Billboard charts with his goofy, spoofy “Gangnam Style” in 2012, few tweeners imitating the video’s signature horse-trot dance knew that Gangnam is a ritzy neighborhood south of the Han River in Seoul. Since then, K-pop — and the whole Korean popular culture phenomenon known as Hallyu, or Korean Wave — has become almost as much a part of U.S. culture as that Samsung phone you’re holding. K-pop groups such as Blackpink, BTS and Stray Kids repeatedly make the charts here. In 2023, for example, more than 30 K-pop albums entered the Billboard 200, with five reaching No. 1.
Korean pop culture also has high-culture bonafides. This past summer, the MFA Boston held an exhibition titled “Hallyu! The Korean Wave.” The accompanying text is something of a primer on Korean culture, from Joseon dynasty pottery and the traditional clothing style known as the hanbok to haute couture and costumes worn by K-pop stars. The Boston exhibition was organized by London’s V&A museum as part of that institution’s new, five-year partnership with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Korea. It was sponsored by Hyundai and the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family Foundation, with support by Jean K. and Jeffrey D. Lee, the National Museum of Korea, and Laura and Tait Nielsen, Sonchu and Stefan Gavell, and the Museum Council Special Exhibition Fund.
K-pop stardom is part of a nationwide, several-decades-old macroeconomic shift fueled by government investment in entertainment and, in part, a need to right the country after the 1997 Asian economic crisis. In this regard, young people willing to work this hard to make it big are supporting the nation by sheer dint of hard work. They are also giving back in Korean won.
K-pop stars bring to philanthropy fame, fortune — and fans, who also give in their names. But to be clear, these singers are not South Korea’s richest people. The wealthiest South Korean, Jay Y. Lee, is the executive chairman of Samsung Electronics, the biggest chaebol, or family conglomerate, which he took over after his father died in 2020. With a net worth of $8.1 billion as of January 26, 2025, he earned more than the nation’s second-wealthiest titan, MBK Partners’ private equity billionaire Michael Kim. Kim also made the Forbes Asia’s 2024 Heroes of Philanthropy list for, among other things, announcing a $25 million donation to establish the Institute for Ethical Inquiry and Leadership at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, his alma mater, as well as earlier donations of more than $25 million to the Seoul government for a new public library, and $7 million to Harvard Business School, where he earned an MBA.
But can those gazillionaires dance? Certainly not like Jennie of Blackpink, the most followed South Korean celebrity on Instagram with approximately 86 million followers. (As an example of how tightly connected K-pop celebs are to the national cause, when fans of Jennie criticized her revealing outfit for the 2025 Paris show for Chanel, the company for which she is a brand ambassador, she apologized, saying, “If Korean people think it’s wrong, I’ve got to make up for it. It’s like, I get why you guys are upset. It’s cultural, it’s history. It’s time. And I can’t go against time.”)
The most-followed individual male celebrity was V of boy group BTS. Still, IU is the wealthiest. The singer debuted as a soloist when she was 15, went on to release multiple albums, collaborate with other K-pop stars, and star in K-dramas.
Here’s a look at the top three K-pop philanthropists.
IU supports those facing financial insecurity
The richest K-pop star, solo singer and actor IU, has a net worth of $45 million. As GQ reported in November 2024, IU, whose real name is Lee Ji-eun, was named Korea’s No. 1 artist in Billboard’s “Global No. 1s” series of cover stories about chart-topping artists from around the world.
IU has donated more than $3 million since she debuted in 2008, as we wrote last year. She was also included in Forbes Asia’s “Heroes of Philanthropy” list in 2019. Her wealth comes from her music and film/drama career, brand endorsements and real estate. (Other K-pop stars investing in real estate include BTS members V and RM, and Girls’ Generation member YoonA, who starred in the K drama “King the Land,” which I must confess I recently binge-watched.)
Last year, IU donated 500 million won, or around U.S. $350,000 today, to eight organizations focused on the most vulnerable, as Korea JoongAng Daily reported. In South Korea, the most economically vulnerable populations include single mothers, older folks and orphaned children aging out of care. IU’s 2024 recipients include older patients (and specific other groups) at Asan Medical Center; young adults without parents served by the Korea National Association of Child Welfare; and people living in semi-basements, called banjiha. (You can see what life is like in a semi-basement in the film “Parasite.”) Other grantees focus on financial tools for people with disabilities, homeless shelters, clean water and medical services for children living outside Korea, art programs for underprivileged children, and hearing aids.
IU also gave 225 million won in September of last year to celebrate the 16th anniversary of her debut. All of these donations were, in part, given in the name of her fan group, Uaena. As another example of how K-pop stars connect with the Korean community, IU reportedly prepared food and hand warmers for people who attended a rally in December to impeach the country’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol.
These are smallish gifts in the grand scheme of philanthropy, but they bring visibility to the receiving organizations, inspiring additional giving from fans. As we wrote in 2023, fans of BTS member V donated about $17 million to flood recovery efforts in his name during the previous year. K-giving often includes a hands-on, in-person component that seems reflective of a national communitarian ethos, and stands in stark contrast to the individualism-on-steroids of the U.S. today (the robust community giving in post-fire Los Angeles right now notwithstanding).
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BTS members support Black Lives Matter, hometown charities, children and more
BTS, Korea’s answer to the Backstreet Boys (OK, the world’s answer to U.S. boy bands), a seven-member band of floppy-haired, fabulously tailored young fashionistas, made news in 2022 when they announced that the band would go on hiatus so that all members could fulfill Korea’s mandatory military duty. Though some have now completed it, the band may not regroup until 2026, according to reports. BTS is an acronym that translates into Bulletproof Boy Scouts. (Although in this hilarious crosswalk performance in L.A., the “Late Show’s” James Corden suggests it stands for Big Time Singer.)
In 2020, BTS and its Korean label, then called Big Hit Entertainment, donated $1 million to the Black Lives Matter movement, Variety reported. This was the first public group and label donation to the cause from the Korean pop industry after the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. The band’s seven members — Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V and Jungkook — posted their commitment to the cause on Twitter (now X), writing: “We stand against racial discrimination. We condemn violence. You, I and we all have the right to be respected. We will stand together.”
BTS fan group ARMY is one of the most active and activist K-pop fan groups, as we’ve written. A fan-run charity project called One In An ARMY pulled off a crowdfunding drive to match the group’s 2020 donation, raising more than $1 million for BLM within a couple months.
The BTS Black Lives Matter donation reflects a concern for minorities, which makes sense as a gut-level focus from young people growing up in a small nation that has suffered historic oppression and overshadowing by both Japan and China. It also reflects band members’ own experience of being subjected to prejudice; as they have said, “We feel that prejudice should not be tolerated; it really has no place.”
But also, this gift reflects how much South Korean popular culture has looked to the U.S. for inspiration. K-pop artists have also taken inspiration from forms of Black American music, but diversity is something of a nonconversation in South Korea, where 96% to 99% of the population are of Korean descent, depending on which source you read, and African, African-American and African-Europeans make up maybe 1% of the population.
When I first began covering Korean philanthropy, it seemed to me more integrated into the fabric of society than philanthropy is here in the U.S. But, as with K-pop’s BLM giving, modeling the U.S. is also a driver. South Korea’s largest community impact charity/donor intermediary, Community Chest of Korea (CCK), for example, founded its most visible program by taking inspiration from the robust civil society of the U.S., described by Alexis de Tocqueville in his 1840 book “Democracy in America,” as we’ve written. Like K-pop and K-drama, K-giving in some ways represents a riff on successful formulas honed here.
Individual BTS members each have their own giving. In 2021, for example, in honor of Korea’s Children’s Day, J-Hope, whose real name is Jung Ho-seok, donated more than $89,000 to ChildFund Korea to support a new One Stop Center in Tanzania, East Africa, which will provide legal support, counseling and treatment for child survivors of violence, People reported in 2024. Back in 2019, Jimin made news for his 100-million-Korean-won donation to his hometown of Busan and its Metropolitan City Office of Education. Suga donated $88,000 in 2021 to Keimyung University Dongsan Medical Center in his hometown of Daegu in honor of his 28th birthday. Jin became a member of UNICEF’s Honors Club — those who have donated more than 100 million Korean won to the organization’s Korean committee for children — after his donations of more than that amount in 2019, according to Allkpop. For RM’s 25th birthday, he donated 100 million Korean won to the Seoul Samsun School to support music education for students with hearing impairments. These are just some examples of grants that group members have made over the years that reflect their approach to giving, and the support of their fans.
Jennie from Blackpink supports minorities and partners with Porsche
In May 2024, Blackpink’s Jennie Kim, who goes by Jennie, donated 100 million won to Habitat for Humanity Korea on behalf of her fan club, BLINK. The money will go toward building the Rodem International Alternative School in Anseong, South Korea, to educate Koryo-saram, ethnic Koreans from post-Soviet states, the Times of India reported.
Also Porsche: Last year, she designed a personalized Taycan 4S Cross Turismo, Porsche’s electric sedan. This year, she’s teaming up with Porsche again to raise funds for charity, including to the Green Umbrella Children’s Foundation, a Porsche Korea grantee since 2017.
And Psy of “Gangnam Style” fame? He has become known for donating 100 million won for victims of natural disasters such as floods and fires, and is a member of the Hope Bridge Honors Club, a Korean private donor club. Meanwhile, Netflix has announced a new K-drama featuring IU, dropping March 7. Called “When Life Gives You Tangerines,” the period romance is set in the 1950s on Jeju island, South Korea’s answer to Hawaii. This latest entry in her pop culture catalogue seems poised to help IU’s fortune continue to grow; we’ll see how, and if, more philanthropy follows.
