Primary forms of charity in the form of donation to beggars comes to us from time immemorial, but charity became the norm of societal life with the establishment of Christianity. Kyiv Prince Volodymyr Sviatoslavovych was famous for his generosity in the tenth century. With his charter he officially empowered the clergy to render social assistance to the elderly, sick, and handicapped.
There are infinite problems and contradictions in how one views humanism. World-renowned billionaire and brilliant manager of the modern era Henry Ford believed that charity had never solved a problem for any long-term period. In his autobiography he shared his experience of solving social problems and offered a new philosophy of charity, “Professional charity is not only soulless; it does more harm than good. It humiliates the one who accepts it and lowers self-respect. It is easy to donate; it is much more difficult to make the donation unnecessary.” Ford believed that it was more important to destroy the root of evil, poverty, than to limit oneself to temporary donations when whole layers of the population remained in a state of childish helplessness. He cited research at his factories, which he believed proved that in a well organized industry places can always be found for the handicapped, lame, and blind.
In Soviet times any kind of charity was considered a holdover from the past, invented by the exploiter to protect the suppressed from being infected with the idea of class struggle. Charitable organizations were closed: secular charity as a “bourgeois phenomenon” was liquidated in 1923; and in 1928 this was extended to clerical charity. The “leading and directing” Communist Party became the monopolist for distributing donations, compensation, and privileges, playing the role of All- Union charity provider. And it was not accepted to say much about humanitarian actions in zones of strategic interests of the former USSR and their sizes, called fraternal assistance.
This continued until the moment of Chornobyl disaster, when for the liquidation of this large-scale evil the country that entered the epoch of Gorbachev perestroika was already short of adequate ways and means. A humanitarian flow of uncontaminated food products, medicines, and money flowed to Ukraine from various countries. Caused by Chornobyl and supported by the democratic spirit of perestroika, compassion and sympathy becomes the sign of the society being rebuilt.
Together with the numerous temperance associations, various humanitarian organizations began to appear like mushrooms after a rain. They reached their quantitative peak in 1992-1993. Those who did not manage to reorient themselves toward the democratic wave of power, Communist Youth leaders that stayed out of business or the youthful-looking representatives of the former CPSU most frequently appear at the head of charity organizations and humanitarian foundations. The possibility to purposefully distribute “humanitarian aid” under conditions of empty store shelves magically attracted more and more willing to serve the noble cause. Absence of any legal field and legislative norms also stimulated this power to attract.
The flow of “humanitarian aid” was abruptly limited after introduction of the law on taxing humanitarian shipments. That is why on July 4, 1998, the president signed a decree On Humanitarian Aid in Ukraine, which established certain principles for the legal regulation of humanitarian aid.
Together with this the necessity appeared of solving the issue on tax privileges for domestic companies that provide humanitarian aid. This was made even more necessary by the fact that in countries where such tax breaks are well developed, businessmen willingly grant social assistance.
The law On Humanitarian Aid that became effective from 01.01.2000 became the first real legislative act. It says, “humanitarian assistance ... shall be released from taxation” if the recipients belong to the nonprofit organizations and the buyers do not use it for commercial purposes. However, tax-exempt financial assistance of an enterprise cannot exceed 4% of that enterprise’s taxable profit during the previous reporting period.
It is clear that it is too early to speak about the achievement of any legislative harmony that would foster the best possible activity by the charity foundations, but we can dare to state the fact that the period of chaos and absence of law is over.
The leader among the world humanitarian organizations being the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and UNICEF that are working under UN auspices, the International Committee of Red Cross and the International Federation of the Associations of Red Cross and Red Crescent are also represented in all countries of the world without exception and despite their attempts to preserve its special status of a “neutral” humanitarian organization, gradually are abandoning their policy of self-isolation and image of an egalitarian club of “rich Swiss do-gooders,” and starting to coordinate their efforts with the OCHA.
The largest and the most authoritative humanitarian foundation in this country is the Ukraine to Children National Foundation of the Social Protection of Mothers and Children, the annual volume of charity assistance of which is within the margins between six and seven million hryvnias. Medicines constitute a considerable part of this aid.
Ukrainian charitable activity is now in a state of development. The spontaneous upsurge of the number of charitable organizations has been supplanted by a phase of stabilization. Those incapable to carry out charity activity under the conditions of economic crisis have left the scene, and those who came to charity with pragmatic purposes have been ejected.
Civilized societies are also concerned with the issue of transparency of the activity of humanitarian foundations and their thorough control. Shadow but not apparently criminal capital can probably be legalized for charitable purposes. This issue has already been more than once raised in the media of the post-Soviet states. In fact, there is no shortage of businessmen ready to provide assistance to those who need it, but they are afraid to do so legally, preferring not to do it at all or to demand anonymity. It is simpler to sponsor a favored person from the black money kept in the safe or one’s personal wallet. The mentality of the more intrepid new philanthropists often does not go beyond sponsoring erotic shows or luxurious self-advertising presentations.
Changes are necessary in state policy and public opinion shaped by the media in order for philanthropy to be redirected primarily toward either the socially disadvantaged with no chance to improve their fates on their own (the handicapped, sick, and orphaned), or toward domestic science, scholarship, higher education, culture, and the arts.
For local businessmen-philanthropists the time has come to learn the principles of practical charity, in other words, about the thousand and one ways of doing something useful and good.
