Support in a new compact form – Newspaper Kommersant No. 239 (7440) dated 12/23/2022

The transition of the charity market into “survival mode” from February 2022 makes the current model of its operation temporary. This market in the Russian Federation will not recover in its old form, Yakov and Partners believes, presumably, the best way out for the sector will be the transition from the financial to the resource model, elements of which are strong in India, China and the EU countries, and everywhere the resource model and horizontal ties have been strengthened by the pandemic situation. The market can grow numerically, but not volumetrically – it has new non-professional players. Corporate philanthropy, apparently, is also waiting for a choice of new patterns of work.

“Kommersant” was able to get acquainted with the study of new trends in the charity of the company “Yakov and Partners” (created in the summer of 2022 on the basis of the former Russian division of McKinsey & Co). The company assumes that the current mode of “survival” in the Russian charity market, which is quite large by world standards (for 2020, Russia has risen in the CAF global charity index from 112th to 67th place) is transitive, and the trends for the new model are already obvious operation of this market.

According to the authors, there is no point in waiting for a full recovery of the Russian charity market. The introductory years of 2020 for him are as follows: a drop in flows from donors, the number of which has halved (with the departure of international companies and private donors from the Russian Federation, a reduction in donations from large private philanthropists), a decrease in the solvency of the population by 7%, a decrease in foreign receipts by 50% ( closure of payment systems for the Russian Federation) and an increase in the material costs of funds by 15%. The reaction of “survival” of funds, noted by the authors, is some diversification of sources, reorientation to state grants and purchases in the Russian Federation, “supporting” communications for the audience and its fragmentation (including political), in part – the search for opportunities to work from offices outside the Russian Federation, the closure of minor programs by large foundations and the concentration of grant-giving funds on grant recipients who solve acute problems.

At the same time, according to Yakov and Partners, large funds are now giving grants for the statutory activities of NGOs, and not for new projects and directions, large targeted assistance funds, among other things, are reorienting programs to basic assistance – and medium and small funds are busy with issues survival, saving teams. In addition, there are relatively many new and non-professional players on the market focused on horizontal connections and systemic solutions (especially active in the “patriotic” segment of charity).

Finally, according to the authors, it is possible that the trend towards the prestige of certain formats of charity in the format of “actions together instead of money one by one” is shaping up. New players focused on such strategies do not compete with existing funds, but they can be new points of social consolidation.

The main hypothesis of the authors is that large funds will somehow rethink their strategies in the future, consolidate small funds in the regions, and with the closure of regional funds, their agenda will be increasingly implemented by large funds or associations based on NGOs. At the same time, Yakov & Partners assumes that in all segments of the philanthropy market in a broad sense (education, volunteering, support and development, fundraising, research, social media, CSR and grant support are singled out), as part of the choice of a new stable market model, it is worth focusing on the future shift of the model from financial support to those in need to resource support. Experts cite India, China and the UK as examples.

The example of India now looks extreme for the Russian Federation: the country has a mandate to pay 2% of the profits of commercial organizations to charity, and there is a clear combination of efforts between philanthropists and NGOs on projects (however, Yakov and Partners does not expect lobbying for such state initiatives in the Russian Federation in the short term). But using the examples of China and the UK, or rather, the response of the charity market to the COVID-19 pandemic according to completely different models, in particular, the PRC (the creation of the China NGO Consortium in 2020–2022 is being considered) limits the development of civil society, while the UK, on ​​the contrary, is focused on maximum cooperation between the government and NGOs — it demonstrates trends common to the global sector towards a gradual shift from financial to resource-based philanthropy. Almost all components of the charitable sector, according to Yakov and Partners, from companies (where it is obviously necessary to approve a new CSR agenda for the real needs of the sectors) to infrastructure funds (whose role as lobbyists and facilitators will greatly increase) and universities (a charitable agenda in the Russian Federation still not built into educational standards) require a new model of work – the current “survival” can and should be significantly more productive than just survival.

Dmitry Butrin