Major donors concentrate on children
Major donors concentrate their giving on aid for children
7 November 2014
Russian charities are receiving significantly more high-value private donations.
‘It looks likely that affluent Russians are gradually becoming conscious of the importance of being more discriminating and being in favour, on the whole, of directing their charitable gifts to socially oriented organisations’, commented the head of the fund raising department of the Orthodox Church’s support service, Miloserdie (Charity), Vladlena Kalashnikova, after seeing the results of the Coutts Million Dollar Donors Report, international research produced by the Coutts Institute together with CAF Russia.
The research found that there was a trend towards an increase in major donations from private sources. In 2013 these exceeded a billion US dollars. Miloserdie representatives observed that the major donors were making helping children a priority. ‘This is a pity because the elderly and other adults also need help’ said Ms Kalashnikova. ‘This is one of the gaps in public consciousness which leading figures in the charitable sector are only now beginning to address. From our experience of working with major partners we know that that they often want to help just children and that is a severe constraint’, she continued. Miloserdie emphasised that financial aid to NGOs should be directed towards development of an infrastructure that supported a systematic approach to helping the needy but for that NGOs should demonstrate to donors that they are systematically effective.
Miloserdie covers over 20 social projects including Aid for the Sick, BAS, an emergency centre, Home for Mother, the Children’s Domiciliary Palliative Care Service and so on. Clients of the service are those who cannot expect to receive help elsewhere. The service mainly exists thanks to regular donations from private benefactors.
