“The weather is perfect for cycling, neither too hot nor too cold. This race is a charity event in support of the Air Defense Force. There are many wonderful people around us,” said Vlad Samoylenko, chairman of the Kharkit Charitable Foundation. announced the Critical Mass-style event, which combines bicycle racing and philanthropy, in a Facebook post.
The event was called “Bike Air Defense” and included two vehicles. One was a bicycle parade around Trukhaniv Island, organized for athlete cyclists, and the other was a women’s bicycle parade aimed at drawing attention to the underrepresentation of women as cyclists. Apart from the full kit, two Ukrainian cycling NGOs were the organizers: U-cycle and Kyiv Hundred.
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But it’s not just about sports and diversity. Kharkit organized the event to collect donations for air defense forces in the Kiev region that shoot down Russian drones.
Volunteers need to raise 500,000 hryvnia ($12,130) to purchase a list of equipment. The 104th Territorial Defense Brigade and 92nd Independent Anti-Tank Battalion each require two thermal imaging scopes and two charging stations, and the 92nd Battalion also requires two. searchlight.
The charity event attracted 180 participants. โWe raised almost 200,000 Hr. [$4,850] total,โ Samoylenko told the Kyiv Post. This is almost half of the amount needed.
This is not Harkitt’s first event. A charity fund was established after the invasion began in earnest, and it was decided that donations would be collected through sporting events. Since then, Harkitt has hosted two charity runs, a swimming race, a bicycle race, an amateur table tennis tournament, and even a music festival with sports venues.
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These events helped the foundation raise money for pickup trucks, firearms, and drones for various brigades in Ukraine.
Women riding bicycles during Harkit’s charity cycling event “Bike Air Defense” in Kiev. Source: U-Cycle.
Despite Ukraine breaking records for defense spending, the amount of ammunition needed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) is still not enough for the state to cover. This is why Ukrainian charitable foundations, companies, banks, individual volunteers and the soldiers themselves launch thousands of “zbory” (plural, singular “zbir”), that is, fundraising campaigns exclusively for military purposes or frontline areas. That’s the reason.
The event has become so large that Ukraine’s major retail banks have created special tools to allocate cash, and the country’s largest festival has restarted after a two-year tacit ban on social entertainment.
Hurkit is just one player in this huge market.
bank and banca
Back in 2020, the popular Ukrainian retail bank Monobank created Banka, a sophisticated tool for saving money from Monobank credit or debit cards and organizing community donations with other people. I did.
Savings instruments are not new to the Ukrainian banking system. Monobank’s founders once headed the country’s largest bank, Privatbank, which catered to individuals and small and medium-sized businesses, but many years ago they launched their own savings vehicle, Skalbnicka.
But Monobank’s product had another feature. Customers of any bank can open Banka via a link and allocate funds there in just a few clicks.
What was initially created as a personal savings tool became the most powerful banking vehicle for soldiers to start fundraising after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
Ukrainian Monobanks are fully digital banks with no physical branches, which has made them very popular among Gen Z and Millennials who don’t want to do business with traditional banks. This was another factor driving the use of Banka. This makes it very easy to share funding announcements about Zbir on social media, especially Instagram.
The list of military needs has become huge. Drones, military equipment, charging stations, optics, guns, modern ammunition for soldiers, pickup trucks and cars, antennas, and even fuel.
As a result of Monobank’s fundraising campaign for the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 2022, approximately 9 million Hr. was allocated. Source: Monobank social media.
Banca is currently a fundraising campaign for relatives of soldiers who need to purchase advanced equipment that the state cannot formally fund, volunteers who run charity funds and sustainably procure military units in response to their needs, and friends. is used to allocate funds from fundraising campaigns by bloggers to start. Requests within the military or by military unit.
If the required donation is several thousand hryvnia and is organized by an individual, the large donation must be divided into several smaller donations and collected by another person.
“Our 10 million hryvnia [$250,000] Zubir, known as the “Air Defense Jedi,” allocated 20% of the total amount with the help of 70 ambassadors. We invite friends and others to join us in a major fundraising campaign. They announce small donation fundraisers of 5, 10 or 100,000 hryvnia. Therefore, another benefit of these campaigns is increased awareness,โ Samoylenko explained to the Kyiv Post.
Other Ukrainian banks quickly updated their apps to donate to Ukraine’s largest charity fund, which collects cash for the military. After two years of war, Privatbank launched an alternative: Envelopes. Was it helpful?
Monobank announced that Ukrainians donated 27.4 billion francs ($685 million) in 2023 and 8.5 billion francs ($232.24 billion) in 2022. Kyiv Post asked for clarification on the additional data for nine months in 2024, but Monobank did not comment. Privatbank did not provide data on how much cash was collected using the envelopes, although it agreed to comment in response to questions from the Kyiv Post.
Buying and selling to the Ukrainian military
Veronica Kovzysta, CEO of the Communications Department of the 9th Ministry, had to raise 650,000 Hr. ($16.250) to pay for a medical evacuation vehicle for the Border Guard in Krasnokholivka, at the request of the charity foundation UAFirstAid.
Kobzysta alone could not allocate such a huge sum, but the army needed help. โWe asked all our friends to open a small bunka. We also held a charity auction in honor of my birthday and sold things at a flea market to raise money.Anton I also asked Mr. Tymoshenko. [Ukraineโs popular standup comedian] Please repost the fundraising announcement,โ Kovzysta told the Kyiv Post.
9. Government Communications Agency CEO Veronica Kovzysta and UAFirstAid Charitable Fund Co-Founder Olena Zhenchenko with AFU cash from Kovzysta’s birthday charity auction. Photo courtesy of Mykhailo Sihomrin.
The flea market Kobzhista mentioned is the SHUK flea market, which is held regularly in Pozhir, Kiev. SHUK was created specifically for military financing.
โSHUK dedicates every event to a different fundraising purpose for the Army Corps. All vendors make a donation before the event. The event itself will be a charity auction, and after the event all participants will be able to make a donation if they wish. They ask us to share a part of the proceeds,โ Kobzysta, who himself participated in the flea market as a charity seller, told the Kyiv Post.
9. Veronika Kovzysta, CEO of the Ministry of Communications, and co-founders of the UAFirstAid Charitable Fund, Olena Zhenchenko and Les Yakumchuk, selling at the SHUK flea market in Kyiv, Ukraine. Photo by Veronica Kobzysta.
A charity auction to raise money for the military has become a new cash cow at the Ukrainian event, which will also be held separately online.
The Prytula Foundation, one of Ukraine’s largest philanthropic foundations that raises money for the military, and headed by popular former host Serhii Prytula, is hosting an online auction of items used by prominent Ukrainians. They sold the pink hat worn by Karrueche Band during their winning performance at Eurovision 2022, as well as the Olympic saber used by Ukrainian Olympic fencing champion Olja Harlan.
Underground stand-up clubs have a smaller allocation, but each asset raises bids from tens of thousands of hryvnia to thousands of hryvnia. Each concert will have a break dedicated to a charity auction, where stand-up comedians will sell booty such as front-line flags, empty ammunition boxes, and shell casings.
A comedian from an underground stand-up club is holding a charity auction to sell Ukrainian flags signed by soldiers from the Aydar Battalion fighting on the front lines. Photo by Olena Hrazdan.
Underground stand up clubs have become so good at conducting auctions that they will host them between concerts at ATLAS United 2024, the post-invasion version of Kiev’s famous music festival “ATLAS Weekend” Requested. Before the full-scale invasion, ATLAS Weekend featured The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, Prodigy, Black Eyed Peas, John Newman, Skillet, and more.
ATLAS United 2024 has resumed after a two-year hiatus. Resuming music festivals in the midst of such a tragic event as war may have been a controversial move. The Kyiv Post contacted ATLAS United spokesperson about possible criticism, but did not receive a response at the time of publication. However, there was no scandal and everyone seemed happy.
Probably because the festival was not restarted in vain. The UNITED24 military financing initiative launched by President Zelenskiy of Ukraine asked ATLAS to allocate Hr 100 million for drones. And they succeeded.
transparency and competition
These charitable foundations understand that transparency is important when it comes to such large sums of cash and publish regular reports on how their funds are used. This is a key feature of how to distinguish between reliable and fraudulent fundraisers.
Example report by Hurkit Charity Fund. Source: Fund website.
Transparency is also essential if you want to attract donations sustainably. Competition in this field is fierce. From the start of the full-scale invasion until the end of 2023, Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice has registered 9,000 charitable funds and 6,000 NGOs.
โDemand still significantly exceeds supply. We do not cover needs that are covered by national or large funds, and vice versa. Although this fund could buy drones in large quantities, , it is not possible to immediately cover the needs of specific individuals or units,โ Nadia Denisyuk, CEO of the Lawyers Move Charitable Fund, explained to the Kyiv Post.
Denisik also believes that as the number of military personnel continues to grow, people will switch more from donating to charity funds to collecting cash for relatives serving in the military. “That’s okay too,” she said.
But all efforts contribute to the same goal: procuring supplies for the military and saving lives.