December 21, 2005
Moscow, December 21, 2005. In 2006, Yandex will provide regular advertising support to non-profit organizations. For this purpose, the Charity Aid Foundation (CAF, UK) and Yandex launched a joint program Blago.ru. The program has two objectives: first is helping those who need assistance find it, and second is making sure that those who want to give help know how to do it. The first stage of the program is an open tender for non-profit organizations. To support the winners of the competition at this stage, Yandex allocated an advertising volume of $1 million, according to the price list.
“Yandex often gets letters from people who need help. They do not know where they can turn to, and so they ask us to place their messages as advertisement,” explains Natalia Ostasheva, project manager, Yandex. “Unfortunately, such advertisement is not sufficiently effective, particularly due to the fact that donors want to be certain that the information is reliable. Non-profit organizations have vast experience working with individuals. And CAF has vast experience working with these organizations. That is how this project came to life. Yandex supported charity organizations and events before, but this is the first time that we use a system approach to the task.”
The tender is for organizations that operate on the territory of Russia and provide assistance to people facing difficult situations (diseases, orphan children, people with disabilities, senior citizen, etc.). These organizations must be open, i.e. ready to work with all the people who turn to them.
“Some of the key goals of our operations is to have as many people as possible engaged in civilized and transparent charitable activities, and to support efficient non-profit organizations,” says Polina Filippova, Director of Programs and Grants Department, CAF. “Therefore, we were very enthusiastic about Yandex’s suggestion to start a joint project. With the mechanism of Blago.ru, we shall be able to bring the idea of effective charity to the people, offer them to participate personally in solving problems that are important to the society, and, of course, provide the required information to those who need assistance of non-profit organizations.”
The results of the tender will be announced on February 24, 2006. An independent council of experts will name the winners, whose information will be published at the site www.blago.ru. CAF will guarantee the trustworthiness of selected organizations, and in the future will monitor proper spending of funds disbursed to the organizations and publish reports at the site of the program. On the other hand, Yandex will provide massive advertising support and attract the audience – both those who need help and those who look to help but want to be certain that it goes to the worthy.
The deadline for applications is January 25, 2006. More detailed information about the tender and eligibility criteria can be found at the site of CAF Russia.
CAF (Charities Aid Foundation) is a non-profit organization, whose purpose is making charity as effective as possible. CAF helps donors find organizations that they would like to support; provides information on legal aspects of charitable giving and possible tax incentives; assists the distribution of donations, and monitors the results. The Russian office of the Foundation, CAF Russia, successfully operates in Moscow since 1993. CAF Russia annually implements some forty programs together with the leading Russian and international companies and funds, allocating more than $5 million for social projects.
