13 steps: guidance for charity support in Russia
Thirteen steps: The Ministry of Economic Development presents guidance for charity support in Russia
01.11.2021
On 28 October, a meeting took place of the Coordination Council for the Promotion of Charitable Activities chaired by Tatyana Ilyushnikova, Deputy Minister of Economic Development, which discussed a guidance manual on State support for charitable activities in Russia’s constituent entities.
There are 13 steps in the manual:
- Establishing the executive body of the Russian Federation constituent entity responsible for promoting charitable activities;
- Formation of a (coordinating) advisory body for promoting charity in a Russian constituent entity;
- Adopting a strategy defining the main areas for the development of charity in a Russian constituent entity;
- Adopting legislation regulating charitable activities in a Federation constituent entity;
- Provision of State financial support to CSOs involved in charity work;
- Providing material support to charities;
- Granting tax incentives to charitable organisations;
- Organising training programmes on charitable activities for interested parties;
- Providing information support and promoting charity work;
- Provision of support for charitable work by resource centres;
- Creation of a system of incentives for non-governmental support for charity work;
- Implementing measures aimed at encouraging participation in charitable activity;
- Conducting a regular evaluation of the guidance’s implementation.
The full document can be downloaded here Ссылка
According to the minutes of the meeting, the Ministry of Economic Development will work on developing a mechanism for transferring social tax deductions from charities at the request of the taxpayer to recipients of donations.
The Ministry also undertook to set up a working group by 5 November where details of the mechanism would be worked out, with the results to be presented to the Coordination Council by 1 February next year.
The Ministry is also planning to regulate dubious charitable payments made on international platforms. To this end, a working group will be established to review international experience of regulatory oversight in this area.
Another decision taken by the Coordination Council was to organise an awareness campaign for the public and businesses on how to combat fraud during the collection of private donations. The Council would disseminate material to regional authorities, convene an informational seminar for business representatives at “My Business” centres, and invite them to distribute the material to participants in the #GivingTuesday initiative.
The Ministry also presented information on evaluating the success of programmes and projects implemented by CSOs in the social sector. You can view and download them here здесь..
Translated by Neil Hailey
