ZAGREB, November 22, 2019 – Last year about 9 million euro was collected from 2,632 donors – individuals usually donated for health care while companies donated to the non-profit sector, a panel discussion heard on Thursday.
An analyst from the Catalyst Balkans philanthropist foundation, Zorana Brozović, explained that the foundation has monitored data about volunteer charity campaigns in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Croatia and Serbia since 2013. These donations do not include those by state institutions nor those by religious institutions, she added.
Brozović underlined that the funds collected in various campaigns were balanced and not centralised to the capital city, and that this is particularly pleasing.
“There hasn’t been any great oscillation seen over the past three years when we talk about donations collected. Last year we recorded 2,623 individual donations of 8.9 million euro,” she said.
Highlighting that the foundation collects information on individual donations, she added that available sources indicate that a lot of donors wish to remain anonymous.
“Most donations are made by companies and they usually donate to the non-profit sector, as much as 66%,” Brozović explained. When it comes to donations by individuals, Croatians mostly donate for health care (40%) and marginalised groups (33%). This includes the disabled, intellectually handicapped, women and children who have suffered violence, and the aged.
However, in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina an increased involvement of citizens has become obvious and more money is being collected at charity events, whereas in Croatia companies are the biggest donors (51%).
Brozović believes that the media do not cover that segment enough and said that last year the foundation recorded 9,678 media reports on charities, mostly in national media.
A reporter for the HRT national broadcaster, Maja Sever, said that it was worrying that the media don’t show sufficient interest in the topic of altruism. She recalled that after 15 years HRT removed the “Croatia Live” TV show and added that these topics need to be worked on systematically and not as individual stories.
More news about charity efforts can be found in the Lifestyle section.
