How does the number of charitable foundations change in the pre-election period?
According to the latest survey “Charity Before the Election”, pre-election charity became a notable phenomenon during the last election campaign. “We never saw such a scale of charity before. There used to be more concerts, public events. That’s probably happening due to COVID-19 pandemic,” says a representative of a charitable foundation from Western Ukraine. Indeed, on one hand, concerts and public events are not welcomed due to the growing incidence of coronavirus across the country, as they may cause the disease spread. On the other hand, society’s demand for charitable assistance has grown due to a pandemic. It would be expedient to anticipate that more charitable foundations are set up on the eve of the election.
Most experts say that the number of charitable foundations is indeed growing rapidly during the pre-election period. “I believe it’s rising. The candidates or parties want to draw extra attention and set up a sort of ‘charitable foundations,” a representative of a charity from the South shares. “It is growing. Because Facebook has multiple demonstration activities, and that’s ads. The scale of charity is increasing, new foundations are there which nobody ever heard of,” her colleague from Western Ukraine concurs. “I personally believe that these are new foundations under certain politicians that are set up. They do it to bribe voters,” a representative of a charitable foundation from Kyiv shares. “During this period, political persons pander to the society, do charitable deeds, but they do so to buy voters, to garner political gains later on,”her colleague from Central Ukraine agrees.
Experts emphasize that the charitable foundations created specifically for the elections can be called ‘pseudo-charitable,’ as they are focused on attracting the votes rather than on rendering selfless assistance.
According to experts, such charitable foundations are not necessarily newly created, but get traction only before the elections. “There are charitable foundations that only operate in the pre-election period. Aiming to raise public attention to certain candidates. When the elections are over, they’re gone. In-between the elections, they only exist on paper,” says a representative of a small Western Ukrainian charitable foundation. This practice seems to be quite common. “There are charitable foundations in our city that only do something on the eve of elections. Nobody ever hears anything about them in other times. And that’s not just during a single election cycle. A half of candidates to mayor have their charitable foundations that operate in the pre-election period,” an expert from Central Ukraine concurs. Thus, the number of charitable foundations does not increase significantly on paper, but the number of active foundations and initiatives does grow.
“When it comes to the pre-election period, they do not get the foundations registered as legal entities during this time. They are set up much in advance. That’s charitable initiatives rather than foundations that spur on the eve of elections — these are occasional initiatives that help here and there,” sums up a representative of a large national-level foundation. At the same time, experts emphasize that the charitable foundations created specifically for the elections can be called ‘pseudo-charitable,’ as they are focused on attracting the votes rather than on rendering selfless assistance.
