The Giving Hand Shall not Falter

In 2004, Ukraine’s Justice Ministry registered a record low number of charitable organizations. Until recently, Ukraine had an annual average of seventy organizations with international status and forty national organizations, the tally of the first eight months of this year is a mere thirty international and eight nationwide charitable organizations.

YOU CAN’T MISTAKE INSINCERE CHARITY FOR TRUE COMPASSION

I had never been into charity, as I found it time-consuming and somewhat embarrassing. Everything changed in a flash. A newspaper carried an article about a boy who was mauled by a rabid dog. The newspaper photo showed a slim, fair-haired boy, who reminded me of my son when he was small. I felt his pain as if it were my own. So I decided to transfer a small amount to the account specified in the paper, and that was when I understood that Ukrainians have mixed feelings about such aid. Bank employees cited dozens of reasons why they couldn’t accept the transfer. I showed them the newspaper with the account, but this only made things worse, because they stared at me as if I were a madwoman. In the end, I somehow managed to send a postal money order. When a similar thing happened to a colleague, for the first time in my life I felt sorry for all those people who are involved in charitable work on a daily basis. For some reason the public is not on their side, condemning both charity givers and recipients: people think the givers made a fortune through embezzlement and are now pretending to be generous, while the recipients of charity do not want to work, and instead beg alms. I wish it were that simple.

Foreigners who adopt disabled Ukrainian children do not have hearts bigger than Ukrainians’. The simple truth is that their countries provide all the conditions — social benefits, tax breaks, etc. — to make people want to take care of those who need help. Meanwhile, in Ukraine charity, much like the church, is separated from the state.

Yet this is not completely true. The government keeps a close track of all incomes of the population, including charitable donations. Of course, it can’t stop me from slipping a poor man a hryvnia. It’s a different matter when a philanthropist wishes to help somebody on a more generous scale. He will soon learn that this is not his personal business.

“For some reason people tend to see lucre in everything,” says Oleksandr Feldman, chair of the AVEK charitable fund and people’s deputy of Ukraine. “In such cases my colleagues say: ‘Drop it; they’ll take you to court anyway.’ But if for once you see the look in the eyes of an ailing child’s parents who can’t afford an operation, all your doubts will fade into the background.”

If the government can’t provide targeted aid to everybody who needs it, it should not stand in the way of those who can and wish to do so. To this end, lawmakers should form a body of laws to create incentives for philanthropists. So far we’ve been witness to the reverse process. To fill up the budget they cut back social programs, thereby discouraging charity. They are caught in a vicious circle: to feed the starving they strike at those who offer a helping hand. Of course, sometimes charitable organizations are only a sham for money laundering schemes. But exposing them is easy, as you can’t mistake insincere charity for true compassion.

HOW CAN WE LEGALIZE THE RIGHT TO GIVE CHARITY?

It appears that 2004 will be a watershed in the history of Ukrainian philanthropy, if the latter survives, that is. A sharp decline in the number of charitable organizations is not accidental. It is the result of a reckless government policy.

“The privileges terminated under Paragraph 80 of the 2004 Budget Law might result in the extinction of philanthropy as a system,” reads a letter to The Day from a charitable fund named after St. Kseniya of St. Petersburg. “Such organizations have already been paralyzed, while many have folded altogether. Enterprises and commercial structures have been deprived of the incentive to give charity. Our fund appealed to the Verkhovna Rada twice in 2004, but no action was taken. Moreover, the Cabinet of Ministers has submitted to the Verkhovna Rada its bill on the 2005 state budget, which is once again blocking charity.”

The termination of privileges for philanthropists and the need to pay taxes on amounts donated will result in the eventual extinction of nonprofit organizations that operate on the right side of the law. Businesses will no longer have any incentive to give charity. What hurts most is the fact that this is happening at a time when Ukraine is witnessing the formation of genuine philanthropists: people who can earn and manage money wisely and understand that one cannot be rich in a poor country.

FIGHTING FOR THE RIGHT TO GIVE CHARITY — HOW MUCH MORE ABSURD CAN IT GET?

The campaign against charity is at odds with both moral and financial considerations. What justified the termination of Paragraph 5 of the Law “On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine on the Income Tax of Enterprises,” under which 2%-4% of income donated to charity was tax exempt? In this way the government saved 200 million hryvnias in 2003. This is peanuts compared to budget receipts of 65 billion hryvnias, especially seeing that the budget is a bottomless pit, so bottomless that many cannot reach the money they are entitled to. Meanwhile, charitable funds provide targeted aid to specific individuals. For example, in the seven years of its work the AVEK fund alone has spent over 24 million hryvnias on social programs.

“We submitted a bill of amendments to the 2005 budget law to the parliamentary budget committee, in which we proposed reestablishing the former legal principles of the relationship between charitable organizations and the state, but the budget committee rejected our bill.”

Fighting for the right to give charity — how much more absurd can it get? Will we ever understand that some things are fleeting and others eternal, and that the level of a nation’s democracy is determined primarily by its social policy and the welfare of its citizens? To tax charity means to punish those who are trying to help. It’s one thing when charity is obstructed by a postal worker; it’s a completely different thing when charity is abolished at the state level.