As we wrote before, Philanthropy Posts’ new effort, the Catalyst initiative is following media in 7 countries in the region trying to work out ways to measure philanthropy. As we were looking into the data, we were interested to see what actions got the most media attention in each of the countries. This is an opportunity for you to see how media in your country view what is interesting for their audience:
National Giving Day: Would You Like to Try It?
Just a couple of weeks ago, the Serbian Philanthropy Forum (SPF) officially launched the National Giving Day, an initiative done for the first time in Serbia. While the name (national day) suggests that it is just one day when giving is encouraged, SPF decided to take things a little bit differently.
This post will tell you more about how they came up with the whole idea and how it is going to be implemented, but will also look at some examples of the same or similar ideas from other countries and continents that you may find inspiring! Who knows, maybe one day we’ll write about the Balkans Giving Day?
July 4, 2013
Portrait of a Donor: Nikola Koprivica or The one who gives should be thankful!
Last year, PP brought you portraits of two major individual donors, both from out of our region. We thought it might be time to show that there are such donors in Western Balkans too! This post is about Nikola Koprivica, businessman and philanthropist from Montenegro, who, in memory of his father, established Foundation “Ćano Koprivica” in Niksic in Montenegro.
His father, Stanislav-Ćano Koprivica was widely known in Montenegro for his philanthropic giving and is considered as one of the greatest Montenegrin philanthropists. The first Montenegrin Iskra Award for Individual Philanthropy was given to him, posthumously, for outstanding life contribution. Often are quoted his words: “it is not important how much money you have, what is important is to know what to do with it.”
This is Nikola’s (Stanislav’s son) story:
June 20, 2013
Portret donatora: Nikola Koprivica ili Onaj koji daje treba da bude zahvalan!
Prošle godine, PP vam je prikazao dva značajna individualna donatora, oba van našeg regiona. Mislili smo da je sada pravo vreme da vam pokažemo da takvih donatora ima i na Zapadnom Balkanu! Ovaj post govori o Nikoli Koprivici, biznismenu i filantropu iz Crne Gore, koji je, u znak sećanja na svoga oca, uspostavio Fondaciju “Ćano Koprivica” u Nikšiću u Crnoj Gori.
Njegov otac, Stanislav-Ćano Koprivica bio je poznat po svojim filantropskim donacijama I smatra se za jednog od najvećih filantropa Crne Gore. Prva nagrada “Iskra” za izuzetan doprinos individualnoj filantropiji u Crnoj Gori mu je dodeljena posthumno. Često se citira njegova izreka: “Nije bitno koliko novca imaš,već da znaš šta sa tim novcem da uradiš.”
Ovo je priča Stanislavovog sina, Nikole:
June 20, 2013
Bulgarian Donor’s Forum: can the rest of us do it as well?
While, over the years, there were lot of attempts to create functioning donors’ forums in Western Balkans countries, I don’t know of any example (if you do, please share) that it really worked both in terms of time as well as achieving their purpose. Now, when so many of the foreign donors left (or are in the process of leaving), it seems that – in most of the countries – we even stop attempting to create such forums.
And that’s pity, because functioning donors forum can have even more important role now, when we have local philanthropic organizations and entities, and why not, individual philanthropists. Promoting and advocating for philanthropy would be much more successful with combination of local players – such as foundations and corporations; not to say anything about supporting local donors to give more effectively. And, Bulgarian Donors Forum proves this!
June 6, 2013
Big Brother, a guerilla performance, a new heart…or shaming Serbia into giving
Last Monday, my FB account was overwhelmed by a shared YouTube video of Sergej Trifunovic’s (a well-known and somewhat controversial Serbian actor) speech that he gave on VIP Big Brother.
Sergej, who was invited to appear as a guest in the studio during the ongoing BB show used his interview time for something that was pretty much a guerilla performance. Instead of talking about BB and its celebrity contestants, he used his time to scold the whole of Serbia for spending money on SMSes for voting on BB and asked that instead people donate money for a new heart for little Tijana Ognjanovic…and boy, was he rough!!!
April 9, 2013
Šta su…crowdsourcing i crowdfunding mehanizmi?
Sećate li se zapisa o predviđanjima za razvoj filantropije na Balkanu? Jedno od deset predviđanja za razvoj filantropije na Balkanu bilo je:
“Razviće se novi mehanizmi i alati koji će olakšati davanje. Opšte povećanje transakcija na internetu povećaće internet filantropiju (davanje putem interneta); razviće se i drugi alati i mehanizmi uključujući davanje od plate i trajni nalog. Pojačaće se promocija mehanizama crowdsourcing i crowdfunding.”
Dakle, šta su zapravo crowdsourcing (kraudsorsing) i crowdfunding (kraudfanding)? Izvor sveg znanja (poznat i kao Vikipedija) kaže:
November 6, 2012
What are crowdsourcing and crowdfunding?
Remember the post about predictions for philanthropy development in the Balkans? Well, one of the predictions was “New mechanisms and tools will be developed as to make giving easier. General increase of e-transactions will influence increase of e-philanthropy (online giving)… Promotion of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding mechanisms will increase.”
So what exactly are crowdsourcing and crowdfunding? Well, the source of all knowledge (also known as Wikipedia) says:
March 23, 2012
Why developing philanthropy is not a waste of time
Zoran Stojkovski’s article about local NGOs and local philanthropy definitely provoked me to share some of the thoughts on this issue. To start with data, Zoran shared that in Macedonia, “less than 10% of donations and sponsorships from local business sector goes to NGOs”. Not that is much different in other countries: in Bosnia and Herzegovina only about 17% of CSO report community contributions and 12% business contributions; in Croatia only 6,2% of CSOs income comes from companies; in Serbia, in the most recent research, 35% of CSOs stated financial support from business and 11% support from citizens. Last weeks’ post from Turkey reports that over 87% of individuals prefers direct giving as opposed to giving to CSOs. Just to back up this data, last years’ media monitoring showed that institutions are “beating” CSOs as recipients of the donations in all countries except Croatia.
March 16, 2012
Inside the Minds of Donors (Part III): Portrait of a Donor – Peter Kulloi
In the fall of 2011, a friendly reference brought me an invitation to two-day workshop on philanthropy in Hungary and opportunity to meet a remarkable person: Peter Kulloi, businessman and philanthropists. Peter’s background sounds pretty simple: he was an investment banker, first in Budapest then in London. He retired at the age of 40 and became involved in philanthropy, both as a founder of the non-profit foundation but also as a supporter/Board member of number of non-profit initiatives and causes.
Peter made deep impression on me – firstly, because he had some very interesting observations on philanthropy, charities, fundraising, but also because he was/is the first person that I’ve met that said – “I’ve earned enough money! Now I want to give it back!”
This post brings some of Peter’s thoughts on giving, non-profits, philanthropy:
February 17, 2012