The Together Making the World (Social Solidarity Bank) has, over the past 20-plus years, been practicing unsecured and unguaranteed microloans for single parents, debt-burdened youth, low-income self-employed individuals, and others with difficulty accessing finance. Under the vision of ‘finance that believes in potential, not credit’ and ‘a small social bank that anyone can turn to at any time,’ it has been connecting opportunities for self-reliance centered on people’s stories and will.
A Small Social Bank That Listens to Lives and Stories
The Together Warmth Fund, launched in 2024 based on this philosophy, is a virtuous financial cycle model created through donations from supporters and companies. Rather than simply lending money, it connects someone’s anxious today with a tomorrow of possibility through relationship-based finance that includes counseling, education, and emotional support.
[The Together Warmth Fund introduced by the Together Making the World (Social Solidarity Bank) Ⓟ Together Making the World]
1. Pre-Startup Funding Loans
“Not ‘why can’t you,’ but ‘how can we make it possible.’”
Institutional finance, with its assessment system based on credit scores and collateral, is a particularly high and solid wall for freelancers, non-regular workers, and those with career breaks. In the gaps of this structure, the Pre-Startup Funding Loan Program comprehensively examines personal stories, readiness, and the will to execute, providing initial startup funds of up to KRW 30 million at an annual interest rate of 2–4%. Not every applicant’s loan can be approved. But looking at the faces of those ultimately selected, there clearly exists a history of steady preparation and sincerely built capabilities even amid the hardships of life. The Pre-Startup Funding Loan Program is not a ‘loan that unconditionally lends large amounts’ but companion funding for ‘starting a business prepared together.’ The screening process of this program remains not as an experience of rejection but as a time of deliberating together.
2. Together Warmth Fund Personal Microloans
Crisis is about timing more than amount; repayment is about planning more than pressure.
A crisis arrives suddenly not so much when one is ‘very short on money’ as at the moment when immediately needed cash is cut off. When unexpected expenses — rent, credit card bills, hospital fees, sudden family care costs — flood in all at once, people end up choosing high-interest loans or robbing Peter to pay Paul. The Together Warmth Fund Personal Microloans aim not at finance that encourages excessive borrowing but at finance of recovery that bridges the break in a crisis. The core principles are reviewing existing debt, assessing necessity and urgency, and designing repayment plans based on life patterns, and participants say, “The money I repay becomes the next person’s opportunity.”
3. Fence Loans for Youth Preparing for Independence
A ‘second chance’ for young people in a policy gap period.
Five years after the end of institutional care, many young people preparing for independence are naturally excluded from various policy supports. This period is also when major life transitions — such as study, employment, job changes, and relocation — converge all at once. Fence Loans help young people in this period maintain their foundation for independence by providing essential funds at a low interest rate of 2% per annum or less. Young people who could not even come up with deposits or moving costs were able to stably secure housing through Fence Loans. At a time that is easy to miss at the boundary of policy, it seeks to keep a small promise — “We will not make you bear your independence alone” — through the medium of finance.
[New Opportunities Created Through Financial Independence Support Ⓟ Together Making the World]
From Repayment to Solidarity, from Solidarity to the Next Opportunity
The structure in which repaid funds circulate again as the next person’s opportunity is the defining feature of the Together Warmth Fund. Some participants in the startup funding program have voluntarily transitioned into becoming supporters, and many participants say, “Someday, I want to become someone’s Together Warmth Fund.” The Together Warmth Fund is proving that finance can be a stepping stone to recovery rather than a burden.
We hope the warmth of the Together Warmth Fund reaches those for whom the path of self-reliance feels arduous and distant before the high threshold of finance. From being recipients of help to being reborn as agents who provide help — when independence becomes something dreamed of and supported together rather than alone, our society will become a little healthier and more resilient.
Going forward, the Social Solidarity Bank will continue to listen steadily to the lives and stories beyond the numbers, to remain a ‘small social bank’ that those dreaming of self-reliance can turn to at any time.
by Won Jun-hyuk, Deputy Manager, Together Making the World (Social Solidarity Bank)
[Learn Together]
▶ A Chance to Rise Again Through Finance: The Together Warmth Fund
▶ A Startup Born from a Personal Story: One Year of the Together Warmth Fund Pre-Startup Funding Loan Program
▶ Time to Catch Your Breath Again: Speaking About Together Making the World’s Personal Loans