The public interest in endowments is growing every year. In spite of that, the topic of endowments as a phenomena at the interface of finance and philanthropy is still rarely the focus of media attention. To fill in the information gap and provide the audience with up-to-date information, the team of the Istoki Endowment Fund launched the first podcast (online audio channel) in Russia entirely dedicated to the topic of endowments.
December 2022
the first issue of the podcast "Stories from the Origins" has been released»
Podcast guests
"The sustainability of the endowment has turned from an advantage "all other things being equal" into its key property that the long-term development strategies are based upon, as well as plans for the future which, as it seems, cannot be forecasted today in any long-term way. You must agree that such an opportunity is hard to overestimate these days."
Andrey Kudryashov
Executive Director of the Istoki Endowment Fund
"The sustainability of the endowment has turned from an advantage "all other things being equal" into its key property that the long-term development strategies are based upon, as well as plans for the future which, as it seems, cannot be forecasted today in any long-term way. You must agree that such an opportunity is hard to overestimate these days."
“I think when we say “they write professionally about endowments,” we still want to see those who understand the complexity of such financing instrument. To understand the complexity of the instrument in a way that we could appreciate it, see it right in the texts, the journalist need to become a part of this instrument – it can only be felt and experienced by oneself…”
Oksana Oracheva
Director of the Vladimir Potanin Foundation
“I think when we say “they write professionally about endowments,” we still want to see those who understand the complexity of such financing instrument. To understand the complexity of the instrument in a way that we could appreciate it, see it right in the texts, the journalist need to become a part of this instrument – it can only be felt and experienced by oneself…”
"The creation of any product, including a digital one, is a team effort. It doesn't happen the way that we take something, leave, and three months later come and say: "Here's your product." No. This is not the way houses are made, that's not the way websites are made, communications - nothing is done that way."
Taras Skulov
Partner and Digital Director of the Philin Philgood Group of Companies
"The creation of any product, including a digital one, is a team effort. It doesn't happen the way that we take something, leave, and three months later come and say: "Here's your product." No. This is not the way houses are made, that's not the way websites are made, communications - nothing is done that way."
"In essence, we have now reached such a level of development of this topic that, in a sense, endowments educate the non-profit sector. In general, both "ours" and "not ours" - such educational, organizational development. Whether these NPOs will have an endowment or not - in any case, they will already have the knowledge."
Natalia Kaminarskaya
Head of the Blagosfera Center for the Development of Charity and Social Activity in Moscow
"In essence, we have now reached such a level of development of this topic that, in a sense, endowments educate the non-profit sector. In general, both "ours" and "not ours" - such educational, organizational development. Whether these NPOs will have an endowment or not - in any case, they will already have the knowledge."
"The word "endowment" is more or less well-known and a buzzword, one might say, in some ways. And it is related to sustainability. The endowment is an attractive, but mysterious dream for those NGOs that work in social sphere: "How to survive, how to become sustainable." We want it, but we don't understand how, and we don't understand how to achieve it and what is needed for this?"
Yulia Danilova
Editor-in-chief of Miloserdie.ru
"The word "endowment" is more or less well-known and a buzzword, one might say, in some ways. And it is related to sustainability. The endowment is an attractive, but mysterious dream for those NGOs that work in social sphere: "How to survive, how to become sustainable." We want it, but we don't understand how, and we don't understand how to achieve it and what is needed for this?"
"I am all for the "role of personality in history" when it comes to building endowments. Serious institutions simply cannot live without it. But, it seems to me, this is the point of endowment, even if you start with one "city madman", then you still acquire colleagues and comrades. And if everything is built correctly, then the loss of one fighter should not affect the process as a whole. If the process is built, launched, like-minded people should take up and develop this story."
Ksenia Punina
Head of the House of Endowment Knowledge Center in Perm
"I am all for the "role of personality in history" when it comes to building endowments. Serious institutions simply cannot live without it. But, it seems to me, this is the point of endowment, even if you start with one "city madman", then you still acquire colleagues and comrades. And if everything is built correctly, then the loss of one fighter should not affect the process as a whole. If the process is built, launched, like-minded people should take up and develop this story."
“Donors of the endowment are an exclusive category of donors. They are not just donors, but transforming donors. They are changing the organization, they impact its future. Their donations are transformational gifts. And it is an entirely different art form to raise such funds.”
Lyudmila Panteleeva
Director of the Philanthropist Endowment Fund, expert in setting up, developing and managing endowment assets
“Donors of the endowment are an exclusive category of donors. They are not just donors, but transforming donors. They are changing the organization, they impact its future. Their donations are transformational gifts. And it is an entirely different art form to raise such funds.”
“The main difficulty to fundraise to endowments is that there is very little awareness in our country about such a tool as endowments. And despite the fact that the history of endowments is rooted deeply in Russian history in pre-revolutionary times, during the Soviet era everyone forgot that eternal contributions ever existed. And only in 2007, in modern Russian history, people thought about it and created bills and endowments began to appear, now they are growing, their number, volumes. But still, if we stop 100 people on the street and ask what an endowment is - at best one or two, and only in Moscow, will be able to answer this question. And in the regions, people will not even be able to pronounce this word correctly. Therefore, this is problem number one. Little understanding, awareness and knowledge.
Natalia Pavlova
Deputy Vice-Rector of the Russian School of Economics, fundraiser
“The main difficulty to fundraise to endowments is that there is very little awareness in our country about such a tool as endowments. And despite the fact that the history of endowments is rooted deeply in Russian history in pre-revolutionary times, during the Soviet era everyone forgot that eternal contributions ever existed. And only in 2007, in modern Russian history, people thought about it and created bills and endowments began to appear, now they are growing, their number, volumes. But still, if we stop 100 people on the street and ask what an endowment is - at best one or two, and only in Moscow, will be able to answer this question. And in the regions, people will not even be able to pronounce this word correctly. Therefore, this is problem number one. Little understanding, awareness and knowledge.
"Along with the website and social networks, one of the working tools that can be useful for NPOs is e-mailing. It would seem that this is a very old, one might even say, "ancient" tool, but this does not mean that it is not a working thing if you set up a beautiful, correct design."
Yulia Kalugina
Head of Projects of the Philin Philgood Group of Companies
"Along with the website and social networks, one of the working tools that can be useful for NPOs is e-mailing. It would seem that this is a very old, one might even say, "ancient" tool, but this does not mean that it is not a working thing if you set up a beautiful, correct design."
"NPOs need to act steadily when planning to create an endowment, because most of it are initially formed with a small amount, from three to five million rubles. Everyone understands perfectly well that it is very difficult to get 100 or 500 million at once - both in terms of the knowledge of the employees themselves, their readiness to work with a new tool, and in terms of the readiness of a specific donor or group of donors to immediately finance a new project. A large number of donors do not know what an endowment is and they have to be explained, literally from scratch."
Roza Voronina
Head of the Non-Profit Organizations Department, Management Company "AAA Capital Management"
"NPOs need to act steadily when planning to create an endowment, because most of it are initially formed with a small amount, from three to five million rubles. Everyone understands perfectly well that it is very difficult to get 100 or 500 million at once - both in terms of the knowledge of the employees themselves, their readiness to work with a new tool, and in terms of the readiness of a specific donor or group of donors to immediately finance a new project. A large number of donors do not know what an endowment is and they have to be explained, literally from scratch."
"Our main priority is to support breakthrough scientific and educational initiatives, because the university pays great attention to the popularization of science. If you ask: what are we doing? We are developing a united community of people involved in the development of the university through various projects."
Gleb Uzunov
Director of the Endowment Fund of National University of Science and Technology MISIS
"Our main priority is to support breakthrough scientific and educational initiatives, because the university pays great attention to the popularization of science. If you ask: what are we doing? We are developing a united community of people involved in the development of the university through various projects."
"An investment portfolio is a set of assets: bonds, shares, deposits, precious metals, real estate - everything that generates income. An investment strategy is what goals you set: how often do you want to receive income, what volume, with what probability? How much are you willing to bear the risk of not receiving income? The higher the risk, the higher the return."
Boris Popov
Head of Investment Product Management at the management company "AAA Capital Management"
"An investment portfolio is a set of assets: bonds, shares, deposits, precious metals, real estate - everything that generates income. An investment strategy is what goals you set: how often do you want to receive income, what volume, with what probability? How much are you willing to bear the risk of not receiving income? The higher the risk, the higher the return."
2
seasons
17
episodes
24
guests
1450
playcount
12
hours of recordings
Listen to poscast
The podcast is available
on the following platforms:
on the following platforms:
Listener age
78,60%
Average listening time 64.66%
(The share of episode that the audience listens to on average)
64,66%
Listening percentage
(The share of users who listened to 90% or more of an episode)
Podcast Awards
The podcast "Stories from Istoki" won the first place in the NGO podcast chart of the Blagosfera Center in January 2023
The podcast "Stories from Istoki" awarded a diploma in the nomination "Best Sound Design" at the Second Festival of NGO podcasts "Go to the Sound" in December 2023.
Director of the Blagosfera Center for the Development of Charity and Social Activity
Natalya Kaminarskaya
«Whatever the foundation do, they do it professionally and thoughtfully. They are always ready to share knowledge: to help find this knowledge and transmit it to the sector partners. Podcasts about endowments, in plain language, on the wave of NGO, provide a high-quality methodological assistance to those who already have capital, and to those who are just thinking about it»
Podcast team
Kirill Olginsky
project producer, podcast host, Communications Director of the Istoki Endowment Fund
Elena Shchetinina
podcast host, Head of the Partner Relations Department
Mikhail Sychinsky
sound engineer
The podcast is recorded in the studio and with the support of the Blagosfera Center for the Development of Charity and Social Activity
Podcast "Stories from Istoki" as a knowledge base on endowments
Setting up, dissolution of endowment, the first steps
Endowment Fundraising
Financial management of endowment funds, cooperation with management companies, reporting
Podcasts about university and school endowments, communication with students and graduates
Legislation
Endowment fund personnel
Endowments sector development
History of endowments in Russia
Forecasts, trends
Endowments and PR, information transparency
Episodes recorded in partnership with the Potanin Foundation
- What do we tell society about endowments, and what does society read about us?
- Close impossible to work: what do you need to know about the endowment dissolution when setting up?
- Reporting of management companies: do we need standards?
- Succession scenarios for Russian capital owners: what do endowments need to know?
People of Russian endowments
Podcasts on NGO digitalization
Photo gallery
For cooperation please contact: Info@istoki-foundation.org with the subject “Podcasts”