I give it a blessing: what you don’t know about the work of charitable foundations. Children in orphanages need consumables much more than toys and iPhones. What is charity

It is known that in any more or less developed society they are distributed according to the principle of priority. However, it often happens that some socially important processes do not receive adequate funding. Fortunately, today anyone can contribute to the development of medicine, sports or culture. This became possible thanks to the existence of special charitable foundations... What is it?

Charitable foundations are special non-profit organizations that accumulate funds for the purpose of their further targeted distribution among those in need. From a social point of view, such movements are simply necessary. After all, the state cannot always, on its own, ensure the normal functioning of certain mechanisms that are important for public life.

Anyone can become a patron of a charitable foundation. In practice, this means that absolutely anyone can voluntarily donate funds by sponsoring a particular area of social life (for example, medicine, science or art) or even a specific group of poor citizens. And not only the society itself, but also special state structures will closely monitor that all the above finances reach their addressees.

Aid fund as a way of charity

For most large countries, the problem of insufficient budget flexibility remains very urgent to this day. Due to the impossibility of a prompt response by those in power to current events, many important aspects of social life in such states remain without adequate funding. Unfortunately, it is no exception in this sense and the Russian Federation... That is why the activities of charitable foundations in our country are so in demand.

By independently creating relevant organizations, caring people take on the responsibility of supporting state culture, science and sports. They also promptly provide social protection certain categories of needy citizens. Hundreds of millions of dollars annually pass through the hands of Russian philanthropists, which are then distributed by them for the most urgent needs for society.

Today, the following Russian funds are best known for their activities:

Vladimir Potanin Foundation ( financial support students);
the “Volnoe Delo” foundation (the “Temples of Russia” program and other well-known projects concerning the most diverse spheres of social life);
the Dynasty Foundation (financing of educational programs and science in general);
Victoria Foundation (support for orphans);
Foundation "Link of Times" (preservation of Russian cultural heritage).

From a legal point of view

Aid Foundation is a non-profit organization

From the point of view of legislators, a charitable foundation can be considered any non-profit (that is, founded without the purpose of making a profit) structure that specializes in the provision of a particular type of social services.

According to article 118 Civil Code RF, open a similar organization can any legal or individual... By the way, in the latter case, the benefactor does not even have to be a citizen of the country.

It is curious that, according to all the same Russian legislation, the described funds can also be engaged in entrepreneurial activity. Moreover - to do it both on your own behalf and through a specially established for this Joint-Stock Company, or -. There are only a few restrictions on this:

at least 80% of all profits received by such entrepreneurs should be redistributed to fund charity;
sphere entrepreneurial activity the foundation (as well as the specifics of the charitable services provided to it) must be clearly indicated in all the organization's documentation using OKVED codes;
the entrepreneurial activity of a charitable foundation should not go beyond the charter of the organization (article 49 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation).

How to open a charitable foundation?

Anyone can create a help fund

As it is clear from all that has been said above, purely theoretically, anyone can establish their own charitable foundation. However, in practice, certain conditions must be met for this. More specifically, we are talking about securing funding for the fund.

In other words, before opening such an organization, the benefactor must make sure that social services which he is going to provide will arouse the interest of prospective patrons. That is why the founders of foundations are usually people who already have some experience of philanthropic activity.

As soon as the philanthropist decides on the front of the upcoming work, he can begin to draw up a business plan for his organization. It is not only a clear idea of the targeting of the fund's services that is important here. The list of prospective patrons is also important. This moment can become critical, since without generous donations, a young organization will simply not be able to provide even its own economic activity, because 80% of her income will be accumulated for charitable needs.

One way or another, as soon as the business plan is ready, the founder of the fund will be able to register his creation with the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation. Pursuant to the laws on charitable activities and non-profit organizations, this step is strictly required. To carry out the same procedure, the founder will need the following documents:

for registration of the fund (form RN0001);
a documented decision on the creation of an organization and approval of the relevant constituent documents;
the charter of the future foundation (in triplicate);
a receipt in the amount of 4 thousand rubles;
proof that the fund has an actual address (certificate of ownership of the office space or a letter of guarantee from the lessor thereof).

As a rule, the decision to establish a charitable foundation is made by the Ministry of Justice within two weeks. The same amount of time to the mentioned government body required for the certification of all necessary registration documents. As for, in fact, official activities, her organization will be able to start as soon as its founders have the following papers in their hands:

After that, the philanthropist will only have to register with the statistics service, as well as funds - pension and social insurance. Then he will be able to select a bank to service the accounts of the organization and finally begin the planned activities.

As for, directly, the taxation of charitable foundations, it has some specifics. All payments are made within the so-called narrowed base. As a result, any voluntary donations made to the foundation will not be taxed. For this to work not only in theory, but also in practice, all charitable contributions to the organization's account must be properly formalized. Only a very experienced accountant with extensive accounting work experience can usually cope with such a task.

In this video, you will learn how a fund is created and how you can create a fund from scratch:

I want to tell you about one of my projects. The case that I want to tell you about is our charitable foundation http://foundationlife.org/ru/.

The idea came to mind by accident. In general, for a long time there were thoughts of doing charity work, but somehow it was always postponed for an indefinite future.

And then one day, in December 2011, my partner and I discussed the salary of employees, annual bonuses, etc. About one particular person who, after another increase in salary, decided that he is very important and cannot be replaced, as I remember, I said something like - what would the prize go to him, could this money do something good, help children sick.

Then I realized that the time had come, the partners were also not opposed to allocating a small% of their income to charity. To be sure that the money will go to a good cause, we decided to gradually create our own fund.

At first, we planned to help hospitals in Novosibirsk, where I was born and raised and where my mother worked for 30 years in medicine. I myself have already changed my place of residence for a long time to warm Latin America, then my parents moved to us, but my mother still had acquaintances in hospitals, and I was sure that we would find where the money could be used for the benefit of people.

In their home in Ecuador, they were going to start charity work a little later - here, unlike in Russia, there were practically no acquaintances in state clinics, and private ones did not particularly need help.

However, as is usually the case with new projects, everything turned out to be much more complicated than it seemed at first, and the scheme of work has changed and become more complicated. In fact, everything has become the other way around, than it seemed at the beginning.

Hospitals usually need large sums of money for equipment, and we planned to allocate in the region of $ 3000-5000 per month, and ideally this money should have been enough for both Russia and Ecuador. While we were looking for hospitals, where it was necessary, for example, to make repairs in some departments (moreover, so that the head physician and deputies were ideological, not stealing money), we and the employees told about our plans, and those to their relatives and friends.

Requests began to come in to help raise funds for the treatment of specific children, and if we could not help with amounts of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, then soon our first ward was found - Sasha from St. serious problems with heart. Sasha studies in the same class with the daughter of one of our employees in St. Petersburg, the amount was quite within his reach - from $ 200 per month for medicines, and payment for a flight to Germany and examinations 1-2 times a year.

We contributed the first money to the fund from January profits, in February we started helping Sasha. We came to the conclusion that we need a website - gradually the list of wards will grow, the information needs to be saved somewhere, plus, over time, some donations from site visitors will begin to flow.

They planned to make the site very simple - a blog with updates once a month about how much money was spent on what, information about the fund, an online donation form. Just in February, they were looking for an additional programmer for one of their businesses, and they decided to make a simple website for the fund as a test task.

It was decided to postpone the registration of a legal entity and accounts in banks and payment systems until we collect some kind of work history - it is obvious that charity is a convenient way of money laundering, fraud, so a fund without a "portfolios" is unlikely to be taken seriously ...

While we were looking for a programmer, I myself sketched the layout of the site, came up with the name "Foundation Life", of all the options this one won the most votes among our team.

The search for a programmer was delayed, the project for which they were looking for is much more difficult than a blog, and 90% of the applicants did not suit us at all. By May, the fund's reserve had already made up a decent amount, since only Sasha was helped, and deductions were made every month. It was decided to continue looking for children in need of help.

To expand the geography, we decided that it was time to look in Ecuador. Someone would have told me before, I would never have believed that the simplest thing is to donate money, and finding how to use it for a good business is much more difficult ...

Again, nothing happened with hospitals and healthcare organizations, apparently such proposals rarely arise, or simply doctors are not ready. There were certainly options, but in style<<переведите нам деньги, а мы сами всё сделаем>> which did not suit us at all.

I immediately planned to involve my mother in the search for patients, in order to quickly improve Spanish, she regularly bought local newspapers, and we noticed that there were requests for help there. Someone has no money for an urgent operation or even medicine, somewhere a large family loses its breadwinner - there are plenty of situations where even a little money can save lives.

This is how our program was born<<Скорая помощь>> - newspapers were looked through, requests were selected where we were able to help, then our managers contacted the needy party and discussed what and how we would buy.

We were the first to help Vilela, who had an accident with her parents, and Gabriel, a disabled boy in serious condition. We decided to buy medicines on our own, pay for operations and examinations, otherwise there will be no reporting for official work, and there will be no confidence that every penny went to a good cause.

At first, I myself was engaged in the purchase and transfer of material aid, met with doctors, sent parcels. The managers of our companies in Russia and Ecuador helped me in negotiations and transfer. Gradually, there were more and more needy people, the material accumulated and the lack of a website became a real problem.

In June-July, we ordered a logo and website design, began to work on the content - finally, a suitable programmer was found.

In July, children were found in Novosibirsk - they helped pay for the instructor Vasya, who is struggling with cerebral palsy (children's central paralysis), the families of other children learned about this from the instructor, and we were literally inundated with letters and requests.

Since we already had several children from Ecuador in constant need of help, we asked for more information not to be disseminated yet. The Fund definitely needs a reserve in case of an urgent operation, and it's not so easy to organize everything. While the site was being developed, it turned from a simple blog into a "mix of 1C with WordPress" as the programmer put it.

Updating the site once a month was clearly not enough, on some days we had several promotions (we bought and delivered medicines to one child, paid for examinations to another).

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It turned out that a couple of times a month to allocate average amounts is not an option for a start-up fund, small amounts were needed for each action of assistance, it is difficult to guess so in order to get into the budget. Help was needed all the time and the fund began to spend rather than accumulate funds. The site engine has finally been more or less refined, and it's time to add information about all the work done.

This was perhaps the most difficult thing, the time was enormous. Since at that time I was the best informed about the situation, I had to add most of the material myself. The engine was buggy at times, it was necessary to constantly make corrections.

A story was needed about each patient, a report with photographs and scans of documents about each action of the fund, all materials had to be entered in three languages - Russian, English, Spanish. Without the help of managers, and sometimes professional translators (translating extracts from case histories even "from Russian into Russian" is not an easy task), it would have taken many months, but after pressing it, we finished with the site in September.

More than once I swore at myself that I had not initially entrusted the filling of the site with content to someone else, I had to combine writing text, processing photos, etc. with a business, especially since now it was necessary to earn money not only for the family, but also for the fund.

Time was sorely lacking. The time has come to recruit staff directly for the fund, if in Russia we helped several children in two cities, and there were enough two managers who were mostly engaged in our commercial projects, then in Ecuador we had many one-off<<заказов>> and the work went on throughout the country.

A project coordinator appeared, to whom we began to pay a symbolic salary, since she spent most of the day on work and the costs of communications, transport, periodicals and other trifles increased, and two managers in different regions, mainly engaged in business projects.

We could no longer cope with the timely updating of the site, we found a secretary for blogging in three languages and help with other little things, as well as a courier to deliver material assistance and medicines. In our business, we never save on salary of personnel, but for all employees employed only by the fund, salaries were made purely symbolic. The rest of the team members involved in other projects do not receive any bonuses for this work.

I myself moved away from the current affairs of the fund, since at last everything worked without my participation, I am only dealing with organizational issues.

Of course, sometimes difficulties arise - for example, for personal reasons, the secretary could not blog for a little more than a week in early December, since then the blog "lags behind" by a week, and is unlikely to new year holidays will be able to "catch up with the time."

Even for commercial projects it is not easy to assemble a good team, and it is even more difficult for a charitable foundation. I think it is wrong to hire a full-time person with no salary at all, at least you have to pay at least some minimum. The funds of the fund are limited - each employee, even if he receives $ 100 per month, this is an additional expense.

Promotion of a fund is also not as easy as it seems. Have you discovered, for example, new shop... How to attract buyers? We put maximum advertising, we carry out promotions - with what more money invest, the more we earn over time. If the place is not completely "dull", the return will appear over time, the money spent on advertising will return repeatedly.

It is more difficult with the foundation: those who wish to receive help are much more active in searching than potential benefactors.

Even our foundation, which we are not promoting in any way, because we are still in the process of its official registration, receives many letters asking for help. There are many obvious "divorces" among them, the rest of the applications must be carefully worked out. It is not difficult to distribute money, it is difficult to choose those who really need our help.

Unfortunately, we cannot help most of those who come to us - often people need amounts of $ 100,000-1,000,000, and our foundation does not have such funds. When we have this moment only in the region of $ 15,000 in reserve, they ask to translate "at least some", and here, too, they have to refuse.

If we give the entire reserve to one person, for the needs of those children with whom we are already working, we will have to borrow funds, but what guarantee that those who ask will be able to collect the entire amount? Better we are guaranteed to help 5 children than try to save one ... In addition, we are for full transparency of our activities, and we try to transfer / give money to families of patients only when it is not possible to pay for the treatment ourselves.

Although so far we do not have sponsors "from outside" and all the money spent is still earned by us, it is important to immediately work out the principles of work and adhere to them. In January, we expect the completion of the registration of our fund in Ecuador - a couple of months ago I tried to register a main fund in Panama where it is easier to maintain international activities, but in the end we were refused.

The reason is that we are not currently operating in Panama. After registering the main fund, we will start connecting payment systems to the site, and then we will start promoting the project. We have been moving towards this for a year!

Without registering a fund, you can connect only a few electronic currencies, and even then with a bunch of restrictions. For example, webmoney will not add to their directory until the documents are provided. There is nothing to say about credit cards and other really popular payment methods ..

Promotion of a fund will take a lot of time, unlike commerce where the more they know about you, the more you earn, here it is quite the opposite =) More popularity - more requests for help - more staff will be required.

Of course, additional donations will appear, but the main difficulty here is in the staff. If in business we can easily connect employees of one direction to the work of another, when sales there are sharply growing, then<<в благотворительность>> they cannot be easily translated.

A sensible manager earns decent money - the fund will not be able to pay the same salary as our businesses, but work for minimum payment not all will be. There is no desire to do business from the fund - I am not ready to work for the minimum salary, I will bring more benefits as a founder / sponsor, and appropriating someone's donations is the last thing.

So, we will promote the project gradually, especially since the main objective- the organization of your own donations to charity has already been achieved!

A charitable foundation is not a simple matter, but how nice it is to receive letters, poems and drawings from children with sincere words of gratitude! It happens that you get tired of "chasing money" and already goals achieved they do not always turn out to be the way they dreamed of, charity in this regard is an excellent "outlet".

The thoughts that you care not only about the well-being of yourself and your loved ones, but also try to make this world a better place, delight the soul. Not everyone is able to understand these reasons, a lot of people, just hearing about charity, immediately think about "divorce suckers" and so on, but fortunately there are also not indifferent people for whom there is nothing stupid in wanting to help a stranger. If you've never dealt with charitable activities- Christmas and New Year best time to start!

I AM FOR HELPING AS A VOLUNTEER BECAUSE ...

Tonya Arno, volunteer of the Dark Horse association

Dark Horse is a volunteer association of socially active people who help children and animals. We organize regular trips to the municipal shelter "Pechatniki" for stray animals and the Kardymovsky orphanage, we provide direct and material assistance... We ourselves look for and find different ways to help. We help both children and animals, so each volunteer can choose a direction to their liking.

We do not have clear frameworks and regulations, so we can always choose what to do and who to help. We use different methods and occasions: we organize charity sales with the support of friendly brands, charity yoga lessons (or workshops on other types of activities), organize concerts and festivals, sell T-shirts, bags with the recognizable Dark Horse emblem and illustrations from designer friends, we help to make repairs and so on.

There are unforeseen circumstances when money is urgently needed for an event in an oncology center, for example, and then we decide together what is more important and relevant now.

Volunteers can take on a wide variety of projects, even if they differ from what they usually do. Their funds are mobile, if one of the volunteers found an animal and he urgently needs help, they will help, despite the fact that this animal will not be from the shelter. They are active in in social networks: this allows not only to solve fundraising issues, but also to inspire new guys to join the volunteer movement. Also, thanks to social networks, it is possible to attach animals.

We have horizontal management: there is no director or leaders. Everyone defines his own responsibilities and fulfills them, realizing that overall success depends on the efforts of everyone. This, on the one hand, gives more freedom - everyone chooses what is interesting and comfortable for him, on the other hand, it is a personal responsibility.

We are a community of friends, not colleagues. All our volunteers are in sight, they understand their responsibility both to those whom they help and to other volunteers. Thanks to our principles of work, we always know exactly where these or those funds went, what exactly we did for this or that child. It is very cool that we can check whether the future programmer has his computer or a football player - the long-awaited boots.

We have white accounting: we keep records and track the movement of all Money... Receipts from purchases and payments for services are posted publicly, and reports on trips to orphanages and animal shelters are published in our groups on social networks.

It's easy to cooperate with us and help. In order to connect to the initiative, you just need to write to us, we are always online and will answer any question.

We are not registered anywhere, we have horizontal management - we are an association of friends. Nobody gets paid for their work, our only motivation is to make the world a better place.

I AM FOR HELP THROUGH THE CHARITY FUND BECAUSE ...

Alexander Shuvalov, Head of Private Donor Relations, Arithmetic of Good Foundation, specialist with 20 years of experience in fundraising

Foundations employ professionals who are well aware of the problems and needs of the group of people they help.

The fund's employees know how to make the assistance as effective and efficient as possible.

The Foundation makes sure that the money raised is spent on appropriate programs and initiatives or targeted assistance to the child, and not “lost along the way”.

The fund's activities are transparent. We publish reports on the collection and expenditure of funds, post information about the events held on social networks, share the stories and achievements of our wards. We also report on the results of educational programs in which hundreds of orphans participate. For example, the Chance program, which is being implemented throughout Russia from Voronezh to Krasnoyarsk, gives children in orphanages the opportunity to enter colleges and universities and find their place in adulthood.

You can help the foundation not only through your own donations, but also simply by playing sports -. They join our team of good runners and take part in races not only for sports achievements, but also for helping children.

The Foundation can implement large-scale and long-term projects, for example, we organize a summer educational campus for graduates of the "Chance" program, which attracts children from all over the country. The main goal of the program is to prepare for the delivery of the final certification of students in grades 8-11 and admission to secondary special and higher educational institutions. However, it is important not only to give the guys school knowledge, but also to ensure their socialization, prepare for adulthood. As part of the summer campus program, we create a developing space for graduates of orphanages, in addition, throughout the year we have a whole system of appropriate events for the socialization of pupils.

Working with children does not tolerate amateurism. This is a job for tough professionals.

Abroad, no one thinks about whether charity should be anonymous or not, it is in the life of every person. Disclosing your name is useful in that the organization gets the opportunity to report to the donor. Also, if a person makes a donation openly, he may become positive example for many around him.

It is better to provide assistance to charitable organizations and foundations on their own behalf, and not anonymously, since this gives donors an opportunity to track the purposes for which their money was spent and become an example for other potential benefactors, the heads of the funds told RIA Novosti public organizations on the eve of the Day of Spontaneous Acts of Kindness, which is celebrated on February 17.

Charity as a norm of life

Russians do not yet perceive charity as the norm, says Dina Korzun, co-founder of the Give Life Foundation. “Meanwhile, doing charity work is normal, like brushing your teeth in the morning or saying hello when you meet. Therefore, if you tell someone that you are helping others, it just means that you are stating a fact and talking about something ordinary, everyday, And this may encourage someone else to take part in helping those who need it, "Korzun said.

According to Korzun, no one abroad thinks about whether charity should be anonymous or not. "Charity is everywhere: children in kindergarten they collect money for foundations, there are advertisements in the metro about how to make a donation, in a store, when you buy a product, part of the amount goes to a particular fund. It just exists in the life of almost every person, "Korzun explained.

She noted that the "Give Life" fund is unable to collect money "quietly", however, this goal is not worth it, because the more famous the fund becomes, the more more people learns about the problems of children with cancer and hematological diseases and will be able to seek help.

“We need community support, we need to raise money for the treatment of children, so we talk a lot and often about the fund. At the same time, specific donors who help us very often donate anonymously - and, of course, this is everyone's personal business, whether to tell or not. about their good deeds, "Korzun added.

Feedback

Denis Roza, director of the ROOI "Perspective", believes that a person should not hide the fact that he is doing something good. "If he wants to do it anonymously, this is his choice. At the same time, it is important for us to know who exactly is helping us, because we want to be able to thank the person," Rosa said.

In her opinion, people are often afraid to transfer money to charitable foundations, because they are not sure that the money will be directed specifically to help. In this case, disclosing your name is useful in that the organization gets the opportunity to report to the donor.

“We can always send this donor a report on what his transfer went to pay for. When a person helps anonymously, he cannot get this specific and regular feedback,” Rosa explained.

If a person makes a donation openly, he can become a positive example for many in his environment. "This is very necessary today for the development of charity, for the development of individual donation," added Rosa.

According to Elena Alshanskaya, director of the Volunteers to Help Orphans Charitable Foundation, people who support anonymous donations rarely help themselves. “What we hide and do secret is clearly an abnormal part of our life. It is not built into the processes of our existence. It seems to me that those who urge not to advertise simply do not want to look bad against the background of those who do good deeds, "she said.

When help can be refused

At the same time, many heads of charitable organizations note that there are times when they are forced to give up the donor's money.

"For an organization, it matters where the money comes from. If we are unequivocally sure that this is dishonest money, we will be forced to give it up, otherwise our reputation will suffer," Rosa explained.

According to Alshanskaya, hardly any of the benefactors will agree to accept the money that appeared dishonestly. "There are few benefactors who would take this money. But this is some fantastic situation, because it often happens that we do not know where this money came from. We do not question people where they are from, who they are," she explained. she.

Yelizaveta Glinka, a public figure and physician of palliative medicine, known as Dr. Lisa, also noted that the past of a benefactor matters. "This applies to both parties. Both the one that gives and the one that accepts. I fully admit the idea that there are reasons why you can not take money. I have never encountered such a situation, but I admit that it is possible, for personal reasons or for some other reason, "says Dr. Lisa.

At the same time, Nyuta Federmesser, president of the Vera hospice charity foundation, is convinced that the representatives of the foundations should not judge the motives and goals with which the donor came. "If a person came to help us, we do not judge him, but accept help. The reasons why he came and his past should not matter," Federmesser said.

1. This is a job

Yes, yes, which you also need to go to every day, be in the office from 10 to 19 with a lunch break (in fact, more often without it), make plans and schedules, write reports, argue with superiors, go on vacation, weave undercover intrigues, bickering with colleagues, stupid on Facebook, drinking coffee, in short, doing everything that normal people do in normal jobs.

2. Employees of foundations receive a salary

Naturally, the level of salaries, on average, is lower than the market average for similar positions (head of department, CFO etc.), but quite competitive. Still, first of all, ideological people go to work in foundations, but, surprisingly, they also need to eat, drink, rent an apartment and go on vacation.

3. BF employees are people too

They also get tired, angry, sometimes work enrages them, and there are days when they don't want anything at all. These are not heavenly creatures feeding on rainbows and pooping butterflies, but quite ordinary people who cynically joke, swear, have sex and drink on Friday nights. Ordinary people who do extraordinary things on a daily basis because that's their job.

4. This is not an amateur performance

A charitable foundation is not "my friends and I got together and decided to help stray dogs!" Foundations are legal entities who pay taxes for their employees, enter into with the ward families and treatment centers contracts with applications, pay for the rental of office space and are subject to very strict legislation in this area. So, for example, with every benefactor who wants to transfer at least 10 rubles to the fund, it is necessary to conclude an agreement, so if on the street you are offered to buy a balloon in favor of children with cancer, then with a probability of 99% this is a fraud.

5. Foundations have their own areas of work

The number of people and everyone else who needs help is not diminishing and probably never will be. It is important to understand that if you want to help save whales in New Zealand, then it makes no sense to contact the Grant Life Foundation. Each fund helps to solve specific problems and works in a specific direction: helping people (children, adults, the elderly), helping animals, preserving nature, and so on. You just have to choose where to direct your efforts!

6. Any BF employee works within the framework of the fund

This is not Mother Teresa, who gathers all the unfortunate orphaned and poor in a row under her wing. This is an employee of the organization who works within the framework of the fund, in accordance with the Charter and the current legislation of the Russian Federation. Believe me charity organisations check with a passion that commercial structures never dreamed of.

The council (or commission) includes doctors, founders of the foundation, coordinators of the work of a particular direction. That is, just come and say "Guys, I want to undergo medical treatment in Switzerland!" it is forbidden. It is necessary to provide documents confirming the diagnoses, on the basis of which the commission will decide on assistance in each specific situation. In any case, a package of documents will be required. This is done not only in order to make life difficult for people with serious illnesses or disabilities, but also in order to protect funds from fraudsters who work in this direction.

8. Working in the non-profit sector requires education and special skills

Unfortunately, the philanthropic sector in Russia is just emerging now, so educational institutions where specialists would be trained in this particular area, no. Everyone who comes to work at the foundation gains knowledge and skills on the ground, applying the skills acquired in other areas. Naturally, this is not an easy and slow process, but it's worth it.

9. Helping is simple

In the twenty-first century, when spaceships ply the vastness of the Universe, helping with the ruble is as easy as shelling pears: all decent funds have short numbers to which you can send SMS indicating the amount of donation. In addition, many funds allow you to set up so-called recurring payments - in this case, with your bank card the amount you specified will be debited on a monthly basis. In addition, there are aggregators that also help foundations to raise money - one of the largest are [email protected]: there you can choose the fund or project you are interested in, set up an automatic payment, and much more. If you do not trust financial schemes, then you can always volunteer and see the work of the fund from the inside with your own eyes. As they say, welcome!

10. Charitable foundations never put money in hand

That is, the fund does not transfer 200,000 euros for an operation in Germany in a white envelope to those in need simply because it does not have the right to do so. Every penny and every ruble is accountable. Self-respecting funds monthly post reports on the income and expenditure of funds on their websites, which anyone can get acquainted with. And the payment for the treatment is made directly to the clinics with which the contract is concluded. If desired, these documents can also be found.

11. No need to do good and bring joy

If the foundation has refused your invaluable help - for example, you are eager to give your old children's piano to those in need, and these bad people refuse and fight back with whatever they can - then this does not mean that they are getting drunk. Sometimes the foundations simply do not have the resources to take out this piano of yours, and sometimes this piano is absolutely not needed at the moment by either the wards or the sponsored orphanage. Trust the employees - they will definitely tell you what kind of help the fund needs right now.

12. Helping is not necessarily fraught with millions of money

Any amount is necessary and important: if 1000 people transfer 100 rubles each, then 100,000 rubles will turn out - impressive? This will allow paying for a rehabilitation course for a child with special needs, purchasing supplies for the hospital or food for a dog shelter. It is better to help little by little, but regularly, then the fund has the opportunity to plan its work, income and expenses.

13. Volunteers are the main support of the work of the CF

Therefore, you need to take volunteering seriously and as responsibly as possible. The "I want to do, I want to - I do not" approach is not an option. They count on you and if you promised, do it. Foundations do not have the opportunity to stimulate interest in business with a ruble, so everything remains only on your conscience and under your responsibility.

14. All requests are verified

Not only by commission or expert council, but also a responsible employee of the foundation. If we are talking about expensive treatment, then it is necessary to check the correctness of the diagnosis, the appropriateness of this particular therapy option and much, much more. Is there really no way to help in the Russian Federation? Is this drug really necessary? In addition, all funds interact with each other and share information about scammers who apply to funds for the purpose of personal gain and enrichment - surprisingly, there are such people too.

15. You can apply to the fund not only for money, but also for advice

If at the moment the fund cannot accept an application or, for example, does not deal with the problem you are interested in, then the fund's employees will advise where you can contact, and in some cases they can send you for additional consultation to a specialist. Don't be shy, these people are aware of the problem they are dealing with from the inside.

16. Only 20% of the money the fund has the right to spend on administrative expenses

Moreover, these 20% are taken from the amount spent on the activities of the fund in accordance with the Charter. These expenses include office rent, payment of operating expenses (internet, telephone, etc.), employee salaries, and so on. If you spent 100 rubles, then 20 rubles can be spent on yourself. But it is believed that it is better to spend less. For example, "Give Life" spends about 4-6%, and the "Galchonok" fund - about 12%. The best for children!

17. Children in orphanages need consumables much more than toys and iPhones

Surprisingly, often in orphanages and nursing homes, the simplest things are lacking: sheets, diapers, catheters, diapers. If you want to help some state institution, it is better to first contact the administration or the fund that patronizes it in order to know exactly what is useful to bring. And to be completely honest, people in such institutions always lack only one thing - simple human attention.

18. If a person with special needs does not mean that he is a wonderful sweet white bunny.

It seems to everyone that people in charity are saints, and that those whom they help are the same, in general, directly kissed by apertures. NO! The recipients of aid are very often absolutely disgusting, disgusting and difficult to help them. But you help, because in charity they help not only the good and the pleasant, but they try to help everyone.

The site would like to thank Ksenia Onopko (Galchonok Foundation), Ekaterina Milova (Orbi Foundation) and Alexandra Babkina ([email protected] project) for help in preparing the material.

Text: Katya Kuzmina

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