The FINANCIAL — The majority of companies interviewed by The FINANCIAL spent less money on charity in 2010 than last year. TBC Bank contributed the highest amount of money to charity last year according to the results of our survey.
The total budget of TBC Bank in charity and patron projects last year was 4.5 million GEL, including the amount of 3.5 million GEL which was transferred to the TBC Fund. This Year TBC has spent about GEL 800,000 on charity activities, but there is still time left before the end of the year.
“We support several directions while contributing to charity actions. We support science, art and culture. We do not put emphasis on any particular sphere. We took part in supporting the Saba Literature competition, rehabilitation of different churches and monasteries,” said Natia Gotsadze, PR Manager of TBC Bank.
“We took part in rehabilitation of the Mukhran Batoni Stable in Mukhrani and supported Iori National protected territory. We are in the process of revising different projects where our bank will take part in the nearest future,” Gotsadze said.
The company Madneuli has spent over 560,000 GEL in 2010 (10 months) on sponsorships and charities. As company officials note, the year 2011 budget includes 1,200,000 GEL in its charity direction.
JSC Madneuli had total contributions to charity of more than 1 million GEL in the years 2006-2007, participating in more than 90 charity and sponsorship projects.
“We have participated in many events in different spheres for the past several years. One of the most charitable events that stands out this year is the Fund Iavnana and funding of the Makhata Gori Complex. Many charitable actions are directed to the Bolnisi region where JSC Madneuli is located. Funding in Bolnisi is directed towards education, and development of youth,” said Tamar Liluashvili, Deputy Director of JSC Madneuli.
“Our charitable actions include funding for development of culture, sports, economy, ecology, etc. As a company dealing with natural resources, our priority is ecology. We have participated in many events related to this. We have donated trees and plants to different organizations; have worked closely with the Ministry of Environment on many different projects in this field. To operate in a fully developed country is beneficial for us and for everyone so we are striving to help Georgia in any way possible and support its endeavours to place itself on the international arena. Operating in a successful country means success for our business,” Liluashvili said.
As Company Redix notes their charity activity direction is to develop the theatre sphere.
“We try to support representatives of the theatre sphere and theatre in general. Under the initiative of Redix and fund Tsiskari, every year there is held the theatre ceremony Duruji. The biggest prize established in the theatre sphere consists of GEL 20,000 and is given to the best director of the year,” said Mzia Sharashidze, PR Manager of Redix.
“An initiation ceremony of first course students of the Theatre and film University is also held. Redix gave a special prize to the winner of the competition organized by the National Centre of Manuscripts. It’s hard to name the exact figure that we allocate to charity every year. All of the employees of Redix with different sums of money try to help those people who visit our office nearly every month. Most of our employees help the parents of little children who need to be operated on,” Sharashidze said.
In 2009 Bank of Georgia through its Aid Fund (presently Bank of Georgia Future Foundation) spent 1.7 million GEL on charitable activities.
“We started the project Meocnebe Bavshvebi in 2010. We opened deposits with the sum of 1,000 GEL for 9 children who have no families. From September 2010 till December 2010 we imported 1% of the first sum of Child Deposits. Charity projects are very important for us and we will definitely continue taking part in different projects next year,” said Sophio Balavadze, PR Manager of Bank of Georgia.
HSBC Bank Georgia, one of the leading banks in Georgia declared it has allocated an 80,000 USD budget for CSR activities in 2010.
“Sustainable Business principals are at the heart of HSBC’s operations across the globe. When we evaluate and implement CSR projects our main criteria is sustainability. We refer to Corporate Sustainability rather than Corporate Social Responsibility as this better reflects our priorities. Our Corporate Sustainability projects mainly focus on two areas: education and environment,” declared Guy Lewis, CEO of HSBC Georgia in his interview with The FINANCIAL.
According to Teona Bagdavadze, PR Manager of company Beeline, during the last year, Beeline has implemented a CSR plan called Bright Colours for Children which was dedicated to homeless kids.
“During the programme, any customer who bought a SIM card or telephone from Beeline’s newly opened office donated 0.5 GEL and 1 GEL respectively to our fund, which was created for the charity programme. This CSR activity was very successful. We are planning to open new offices, also with these kinds of activities,” Bagdavadze said.
As a summary of the year and our CSR programme for children, we are planning a Gala Dinner for our partners and leading Georgian businessmen, where we will sell our 50 Golden Numbers. The money raised will be fully donated to a fund for homeless kids, and for the accomplishment of their New Year wishes,” Bagdavadze said.
As Teona Tsereteli, PR Manager of Silknet, says, their most charitable activity is a 50% discount for several categories of their subscribers.
“We have 50% discounts on phone calls for disabled, blind people and lonely pensioners. If they choose a 7 GEL package, they will pay half of this sum. We also have free of charge call minutes. We are actively taking part in supporting the fund Iavnana. We have probably spent about 20,000 to 30,000 GEL on charity activities this year,” Tsereteli said.
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