CSOs are losing donation subscriptions

The Vera Hospice Charity Fund reported the loss of 947 monthly subscribers worth up to 896,000 roubles.

30 March 2022

Since the end of February 2022, many CSOs have seen a drop in donations. On 28 March, the Vera Hospice Charity Fund wrote on the social media site VK that 947 people had unsubscribed from donations that had been bringing in over 10 million roubles a year.

The Agency for Social Information (ASI) found out how much money several charitable organisations have lost due to people opting out of donation subscriptions and cancelling payments, and whether or not they will be able to function as normal.

Serious losses

According to the Vera Fund, the majority of its benefactors can’t donate because of technical issues. Payment systems are rejecting transfers and international payments are bouncing. Despite a significant loss of donations, the Fund continues to work.

Polina Artemyeva, a specialist in media communications at the Shop of Joy Foundation told the ASI that they have also noticed the withdrawal of donation subscriptions. Since the end of February, Shop of Joy has lost 18 subscriptions worth 24,900 roubles.

“The shops are still holding up, as people are looking for an opportunity to buy clothes outside of the mass market. But people are beginning to bring fewer items to donate, two times less for sure.”, Artemyeva clarified.

The Foundation for the Protection of Urban Animals reported a drop in donations. Over the past month, the volume of their donations has decreased by 40%.

According to the head of the communications department of the ORBI Stroke Foundation, Andrey Saitov, the number of regular donations has decreased by almost a quarter over the past month.

“Just last year we started actively fundraising from private sources and increasing the number of Foundation supporters. So, for us, the loss of regular donations from a small base is very tangible.”, Saitov said.

Plans are not cancelled

The charity organisation Nochlezhka’s press office told the ASI that it continues to work and provide assistance.

“At the moment we are not seeing a sharp decrease in the number of donations, but we assume that this could happen in the future. It is important to note that 60% of Nochlezhka’s income comes from private donations.”, the organisation noted.

As of today, compared to February, the number of charity payments to Nochlezhka has decreased by 12%. The number of transactions being rejected due to insufficient funds on the donor’s card has almost doubled. However, the press office noted that this is not necessarily a critical situation and that in global terms their work is stable, and plans are not cancelled.

Last year Nochlezhka helped 8,165 homeless people.

“Now we assume that in the near future we will have more and more work. From experience, any crisis leaves a huge number of people out of work and hundreds and thousands lose their homes. In particularly stressful years, the flow of Nochlezhka beneficiaries increases by 70%. Unfortunately, we understand that in the times to come this number could be even higher”, Nochlezhka told us.

The Naked Hearts Foundation has not noticed any significant losses due to cancelled subscriptions recently, says the head of communications Kemal Tarba. At the same time, the Foundation relies more on corporate fundraising than on mass donations.

Source: https://www.asi.org.ru/news/2022/03/30/uhodyat-li-u-nko-podpiski-na-pozhertvovaniya/

Translated by Ysabelle Smith