The endowment makes it possible to provide sustainable financial support to programs and projects regardless of current fundraising activity. Donors have the opportunity to plan their actions years and even decades ahead, which gives the outmost accumulative social effect when certain socially significant tasks are to be solved.
How does it work?
Let’s consider the case study from the Foundation of Saint Andrew the First-Called, a major recipient of financial support from “ISTOKI” Fund’s endowment.
Endowment saves lives
In 2006, the Foundation came up with the initiative to establish the “Sanctity of Motherhood” program that combined different initiatives of civil society related to the demographic issue. Since then, thanks to the program, huge results have been achieved both in the public area and in state policy. For example, a pilot idea to hold conversations with pregnant women in crisis and expert psychologists was launched in Krasnoyarsk with the subsequent dissemination of the practice to other regions. With the “Sanctity of Motherhood” program being financially supported by returns on the endowment on a long-term basis, it made it possible to create the necessary methods, standards and manuals along with establishment of a community of psychologists, medical officers, volunteers and journalists united by the goal of preserving the nation and supporting the institution of family in Russia. Since 2006, the program has helped to save over 42,000 human lives.
Initiating the trends
Thanks to “ISTOKI” Fund endowment another socially significant project has been developing. The project titled “The All-Russian Contest for Journalists on Family and the Future of Russia” was created to support journalists who can (and love to) write interesting stories about happy and close-knit families (which can certainly be a difficult thing to do) and who can be objective when discussing social issues. Thousands of federal and regional journalists have taken part in the contest over the course of several years. The contest has established a new trend in the press to cover the topic of family and also has supported plenty of local mass media (municipal media in particular).
Therefore, an endowment fund is an effective way for a long-term goal-oriented impact on certain social problems. In fact, an endowment can be considered as a type of social investment. The 2019 Report of Endowment Fund “ISTOKI”
Vladimir Yakunin
“Back in 2013, when facing another inter-crisis period, we contemplated the future and decided to establish ‘ISTOKI’ Specialized Endowment Fund. The Endowment Fund helped us overcome the uneasy years of 2014 and 2015 without any serious losses and we managed to keep our key programs, such as ‘Sanctity of Motherhood’, the contest for social journalism, medical expeditions called ‘The Frontiers of Russia’ and many others.”
«Фонды черного дня: как эндаументы помогают благотворительности», РБК, 19 мая, 2020 года