Charitable help map: how the tool works and why it is important for Ukraine
The coronavirus pandemic has made adjustments in all walks of life. But, of course, medicine got the strongest. In Ukraine, people and business representatives have collected millions of hryvnias in a few months of quarantine to purchase the necessary equipment, medicines and more. Charitable foundations and organizations that continue to assist Ukrainian hospitals in the fight against coronavirus have played a huge role . In order to monitor whether the funds are going to the destination, the monitoring organization Charity Tuner together with the YouControl team developed a map of charitable assistance on Covid-19.
We spoke with Charity Tuner representative Vitaliy Kuzmenko, who explained in detail why this is an important step, how the card works and how much money has already been sent to charity in Ukraine.
Vitaly, tell us about the project, how and why it was created?
In the context of an ever-widening coronavirus pandemic, businesses and philanthropists became involved en masse in helping the state, in this case medical institutions. In the news, we have constantly observed that care is being transferred, but we have not seen how it is taken into account and how much it affects the level of hospital provision. To make the system more transparent, for people to see where their help is going, for us to see how well hospitals are provided not only with budget funds, but also with citizens, a charity map has been created. It is associated with all the charity that comes in the context of the fight against coronavirus.
The map is formed as follows: we receive information from charitable foundations and businesses that help hospitals, check this information through public authorities, ie regional administrations, hospitals themselves, etc. Only after we see that information from philanthropists and recipients match, it gets on the map itself. We went on to create an open database. We post this information on the site in an open data format, and in partnership with YouControl we have created a dashboard that visualizes all this information for the convenience of users.
Can you tell us more about how your information is monitored? How do you track it?
We first approached Charity Tuner-tested foundations and asked them what help they provided. At the same time, we send inquiries to the Ministry of Health, enterprises that are subordinated to the Ministry of Health and were involved in the distribution of humanitarian aid, regional administrations, and individual medical institutions, to confirm this or that information. In the first stage, we worked on such a system. Now we are moving to collect information from all support hospitals (more than 240 institutions in Ukraine) about what was passed on to them.
Among other things, we ask for acts of acceptance and transfer of specific types and names of what is transmitted. We show the monetary equivalent for simplicity, because in fact there are hundreds of items of various goods that are transferred to hospitals.
Is it all the charitable help that is sent to the hospital, or only the one that concerns the fight against the coronavirus?
About the fight against coronavirus. But, in fact, today most charity is directly related to this.
Why is this an important project? How does it help the foundations themselves and ordinary people?
First of all, this is done for the development of the charity system itself. To support, develop and promote charity in Ukraine. To see the scale of help and how important help from business, people. To what extent does it affect the ability of hospitals to withstand the epidemic. This is the main goal.
The second is the transparency of the charity sector. We show how charities help those who donate to them to see how the resources they donate to philanthropists are distributed.
The third is the ability to track security not only through budget procurement, but also through charity.
In the future, when forming a larger base, there will be tracking and negative aspects that may exist. For example, failure of hospitals to disclose information about care received. Everything related to fraud. With a large array of information, all this will be easy to disclose and verify to avoid similar situations in the future.
Who’s help is shown on your map?
From charitable foundations and legal entities. There is simply a list of philanthropists, and so far there is no separation between philanthropists and business. But in the future we will do it all. We now have about 100 philanthropists and we are approaching the figure of about a billion hryvnias of charitable assistance provided in the context of the coronavirus.
How often is the map updated?
Updated approximately once a week. A new update will be released one of these days.
Are you planning to expand your project in the future?
Yes, we see a great demand in the context of transparency of charity, so the project can evolve towards the constant reflection of what is provided to medical institutions to help in the fight against various diseases. We believe that charity should be transparent and can be achieved through such mechanisms.
Author Anastasia Ishchenko
Read also: Equipment, food kits and disinfectants: how Ukrainian business helped during quarantine
We spoke with Charity Tuner representative Vitaliy Kuzmenko, who explained in detail why this is an important step, how the card works and how much money has already been sent to charity in Ukraine.
Vitaly, tell us about the project, how and why it was created?
In the context of an ever-widening coronavirus pandemic, businesses and philanthropists became involved en masse in helping the state, in this case medical institutions. In the news, we have constantly observed that care is being transferred, but we have not seen how it is taken into account and how much it affects the level of hospital provision. To make the system more transparent, for people to see where their help is going, for us to see how well hospitals are provided not only with budget funds, but also with citizens, a charity map has been created. It is associated with all the charity that comes in the context of the fight against coronavirus.
The map is formed as follows: we receive information from charitable foundations and businesses that help hospitals, check this information through public authorities, ie regional administrations, hospitals themselves, etc. Only after we see that information from philanthropists and recipients match, it gets on the map itself. We went on to create an open database. We post this information on the site in an open data format, and in partnership with YouControl we have created a dashboard that visualizes all this information for the convenience of users.
Can you tell us more about how your information is monitored? How do you track it?
We first approached Charity Tuner-tested foundations and asked them what help they provided. At the same time, we send inquiries to the Ministry of Health, enterprises that are subordinated to the Ministry of Health and were involved in the distribution of humanitarian aid, regional administrations, and individual medical institutions, to confirm this or that information. In the first stage, we worked on such a system. Now we are moving to collect information from all support hospitals (more than 240 institutions in Ukraine) about what was passed on to them.
Among other things, we ask for acts of acceptance and transfer of specific types and names of what is transmitted. We show the monetary equivalent for simplicity, because in fact there are hundreds of items of various goods that are transferred to hospitals.
Is it all the charitable help that is sent to the hospital, or only the one that concerns the fight against the coronavirus?
About the fight against coronavirus. But, in fact, today most charity is directly related to this.
Why is this an important project? How does it help the foundations themselves and ordinary people?
First of all, this is done for the development of the charity system itself. To support, develop and promote charity in Ukraine. To see the scale of help and how important help from business, people. To what extent does it affect the ability of hospitals to withstand the epidemic. This is the main goal.
The second is the transparency of the charity sector. We show how charities help those who donate to them to see how the resources they donate to philanthropists are distributed.
The third is the ability to track security not only through budget procurement, but also through charity.
In the future, when forming a larger base, there will be tracking and negative aspects that may exist. For example, failure of hospitals to disclose information about care received. Everything related to fraud. With a large array of information, all this will be easy to disclose and verify to avoid similar situations in the future.
Who’s help is shown on your map?
From charitable foundations and legal entities. There is simply a list of philanthropists, and so far there is no separation between philanthropists and business. But in the future we will do it all. We now have about 100 philanthropists and we are approaching the figure of about a billion hryvnias of charitable assistance provided in the context of the coronavirus.
How often is the map updated?
Updated approximately once a week. A new update will be released one of these days.
Are you planning to expand your project in the future?
Yes, we see a great demand in the context of transparency of charity, so the project can evolve towards the constant reflection of what is provided to medical institutions to help in the fight against various diseases. We believe that charity should be transparent and can be achieved through such mechanisms.
Author Anastasia Ishchenko
Read also: Equipment, food kits and disinfectants: how Ukrainian business helped during quarantine