Glass for giving: what we will put on the record
An oriel is a window that leans out from a wall to let in more light. We chose the name for two reasons: light for learning, and clear glass for giving. This column is about the second half of that promise, written down before we accept a single gift.
Trust comes first, and it is scarce
In the United States, Give.org's 2026 donor trust research found that only 18.3% of people report high trust in charities, while 67.7% say it is essential to trust a charity before donating (Give.org, 2026). In other words, most people want trust before they give, and few of them have it.
Korea shows a similar gap from a different angle. In the 2025 Social Survey by Korea's national statistics agency, 26.1% of people said they had donated in the past year. That is up from 21.6% in 2021, but still below the 29.9% recorded in 2015 (Herald Economy, November 2025).
We do not think a new foundation can fix this by asking people to trust it. We think it can only make trust easier to check.
Three layers of glass
When giving opens, after the foundation is registered, we plan to publish three things for every gift and every expense.
- The chain. Gifts in digital assets will go to public wallet addresses listed on our transparency page. Anyone will be able to see every transfer in and out, without asking us.
- The ledger. A chain shows that money moved, not why. So each movement will also get a line in plain English and Korean in our public ledger: what it was for, which programme, which quarter.
- The receipts. For spending on the ground, such as books, a repair or a teacher's training day, we plan to publish the receipt or invoice, with personal details removed. A field visit will appear as its own entry, travel costs included.
None of this is new technology. The point is to use all three together, so that a number on a page can be traced back to a transfer and forward to a receipt.
What is on the record today
We are not taking donations yet, so there is no money to show. But the ledger already exists. Its first block, dated 27 October 2026, lists what we have done so far: the name, the website and plan, our safeguarding and transparency principles, and two early partners. The next block, planned for November, is a charter draft, our first advisers and a shortlist of local partners.
We are starting the record before the money for a simple reason. If the habit of writing things down is already in place, the first gift lands in a system that was built to show it.
A day for giving, without a donate button
GivingTuesday falls on 1 December this year. It started in 2012 and is held on the Tuesday after American Thanksgiving (Engaging Networks). Because we are not registered, we will not ask for money that day. Instead, we plan to use it to share our plan and invite people to follow the work as it starts. When we do open for gifts, the glass will already be in the window.