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The Overseas Korean Foundation is a non-profit organization affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Its establishment was agreed upon at the No. 1. Overseas Koreans Policy Committee' on May 3, 1996, followed by the announcement of the "Overseas Koreans Foundation Legislation" (Law No. 5313) passed on March 27, 1997. Then on October 30 of that year, the Foundation was inaugurated and put into official operation.

The Overseas Koreans Foundation is now home to some six million overseas Koreans. All its efforts have been focused on various cooperative programs, since these initiatives can be a great help to overseas Koreans and serve as a driving force for the Korean community. Charged with a strong sense of duty, members from the six different departments of the Foundation are cooperating with each other to open up the high synergy potential for all ongoing programs.

The Overseas Korean Foundation will bring its three main programs to a successful conclusion. It will support the maintenance of national homogeneity, expand the cyber Korean community Hanminjok Network, and establish the Korean business network as an integrated hub for those overseas Koreans engaged in the fields of commerce, trade, information technology, science and technology.

The Foundation will also take every measure to complete the construction of the Overseas Koreans Center, with the goal of providing exclusive service for Koreans living abroad when they pay a visit to their ethnic homeland.


   
The OKF aims to help overseas Koreans maintain a sense of national fellowship among themselves and live as exemplary citizens in the nations where they are residing.
   
Into the 1990s, overseas Koreans’ societies experienced substantial changes internally and externally. First, Korea established diplomatic ties with the old Russia and with China, allowing overseas Koreans’ societies to drastically expand in volume. Likewise, the long history of the Koreans’ emigration accelerated generation replacement in each of the overseas Koreans’ societies.

Also, with the enhanced national power of Korea, overseas Koreans increased their expectations of and demands on their motherland, and the Korean government saw a need to utilize the capabilities of overseas Koreans for national development in line with its globalization policy.

This background necessitated the establishment of an office for overseas Koreans as a single organization. But this idea came into conflict with the government’s policy of keeping the government small, and there was fear that it would cause some friction with the governments of the nations where the overseas Koreans were residing. Thus, to address these concerns, the Korean government established the Overseas Koreans Foundation.