Who Is Funding Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation The published list of donors who contributed 4.4 million rubles includes top managers from Rosgosstrakh and Alfa Group Read the full article
As promised, we are publishing the list of the “16 brave ones” — 16 people who publicly and openly agreed to become donors to our Anti-Corruption Foundation:
Vladimir Ashurkov, the Foundation’s executive director.
Roman Borisovich, vice president of Rosgosstrakh LLC.
Dmitry Bykov, writer.
Sergei Grechishkin, financier.
Sergei Guriev, rector of the New Economic School. (He even explains in detail: Why I Gave Money to Navalny).
Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, professor at the Paris School of Economics and the New Economic School.
Boris Zimin, entrepreneur.
Kirill Irtyuga, partner at RosinvestHotel Management Company.
Alexander Lebedev, chairman of the board of directors of National Reserve Corporation.
Artyom Lyubimov, first deputy general director of Bolshoi Gorod CJSC.
Leonid Parfyonov, journalist.
Pavel Prosyankin, financier.
Alexei Savchenko, director of strategic planning at the Alfa Group Consortium.
Denis Sokolov, entrepreneur.
Sergei Filonov, venture investor.
Grigory Chkhartishvili, writer.
All of these wonderful people have already contributed 4.4 million rubles to our foundation’s account so far, and by the end of the year they will contribute about another 4 million. That means we are already close to meeting our minimum annual budget of $300,000.
This is hugely important for us:
1**. (and most importantly) Back in the day, RosPil, having raised 8 million rubles from many thousands of supporters, broke a very entrenched and very harmful stereotype in the public mind: "ordinary people cannot fund a social or political project through small donations".
No one believed money could be raised that way, and no one had even tried. Everyone wanted grants, state funding, or Kremlin/oligarch cash. No other options were thought to exist.
It was treated as an axiom: money from individuals can only be raised effectively for charity, mainly for children’s medical treatment. People won’t give to anything else.
We tried it, and it worked (we were shocked ourselves). It turned out that in Russia there are tens of thousands of people willing to send small amounts (the average RosPil donation was 400 rubles) to all kinds of worthwhile projects.
Now everyone raises money this way, and we’re very happy about that: “Romanova’s wallet,” funding for the brochure Putin. Results, raising money to defend people who were unlawfully arrested, and so on and so on.
It works for liberals and nationalists, for environmentalists and anarchists. If you’re doing something right, you’ll always find at least some money.
Now we want to break another important and harmful stereotype: "wealthy people and businesspeople are afraid to openly give money to social and political causes. They fear terrible reprisals from the bloody regime".
I’m sure that’s not true. There are plenty of rich people who earned their money honestly and are perfectly willing, without embarrassment and without fear, to spend it supporting any activity they find useful.
It’s just that no one has been doing this, and no one has been asking them for money.
As usual, nobody believes in classic fundraising (as if that only exists in books); instead, they believe you need to find one oligarch who will secretly hand over cash. Or go begging from crooks in the presidential administration.
So we asked our “16 brave ones” to be pioneers. To say publicly: yes, we are funding Navalny’s work. We are not afraid. Nothing will happen to us because of it.** A***nd anyone who messes with us won’t last three days.
We very much want other wealthy people to follow the example of the “16 brave ones”: to proudly rise to their feet, pull a wad of cash out of their pocket, and hand it over to people doing good, useful work. To give it openly.
At the Bolotnaya/Sakharov rallies and all those Occupy Abai gatherings (protest encampments in Moscow), there are loads of perfectly legal millionaires wandering around. You can tell just by looking at them that they want to contribute money. We need to create the conditions and infrastructure so they can hand over their liras and drachmas a) legally b) openly c) transparently d) with accountability.
There is nothing to fear and nothing to be ashamed of.
Overcoming the taboo that "you cannot fund anything without permission"*** is the key thing here.
So, if you’re a wealthy person reading these lines, want to do something useful, and consider yourself a patriot of your country, then
think about how much you spend in a year on restaurants alone;
be horrified;
think about what kind of social or political activity appeals to you;
go to your pantry or cellar full of money;
grab a hefty chunk of cash;
transfer that cash openly and boldly to those you support and trust;
enjoy your own courage, the gratitude you’ve earned, and the awareness that you are a CITIZEN;
set an example for your friends — tell them about your deed while playing polo or during your daily diamond shopping.
2. We have an ambition to become the clearest and most financially transparent social and political organization in Russia.
In fact — and I’m not afraid to say it — we want to set a new standard of transparency for people and organizations involved in politics (or near-politics).
Run through in your head all sorts of organizations and political figures. Opposition, semi-opposition, and not opposition at all.
Be honest: do you know where they get their money?
You don’t. And the standard answer to that question is: we are funded by small and medium-sized businesses, but we won’t say which ones, because those businesses don’t want trouble.
It’s really time to move on from that.
That’s why I want the answer to the question "who funds Navalny’s projects and his team?" to be completely clear and obvious.
Then we’ll be the good guys, everyone will love us and give us even more money and we’ll tease and mock everyone else.
3. Now, about the money itself.
Through the Anti-Corruption Foundation, we will finance all our projects, including RosPil (which will have a subaccount, and all reporting and oversight will remain just as strict as before; I’ll write separately about that).
Additional funding will allow us to a) deepen b) expand c) structure our work.
The Foundation will be completely transparent. It will have an independent audit. Our accounting is already fully outsourced; we don’t handle it ourselves.
The Interior Ministry / FSB / GRU / Gorky Park — welcome. Go to the bank and check whatever you want; we have nothing to hide.
The Foundation will finally allow me to completely separate my personal finances from public ones.
Neither I nor Vladimir Ashurkov (he’s our head of fundraising, and none of this would have happened without him) receive a salary from the Foundation.
Of course, o***ur main fundraising strategy remains collecting small donations from a large number of people. We welcome donations of any size, and we understand very well that broad-based support, not elite support, is everything to us.
***The “16 brave ones” are an important addition to the overall plan for world domination.
Here are the bank details for our Foundation:
Everything except RosPil is funded through this account. We plan to move RosYama and other projects to separate subaccounts for separate accounting. If you want to fund RosPil but not the Foundation itself — fine. If you want the opposite — also fine. Our story with the bank card http://www.navalnycard.ru/ is continuing; I’ll write about it separately. We hope it all works out, and that here too we’ll set an example for everyone. That’s all for now. Of course, I’ll be writing much more about this and keeping everyone informed about how things are going. Once again, many thanks to our 16 brave supporters.