This is a very important post that the RosPil team asked me to write a long time ago, but I’ve had to keep putting it off. The information space is constantly jammed, and I didn’t want this post to go unnoticed. One day they open a criminal case against me, the next there are interrogations and searches somewhere, then they pass some degenerate law (like they did today). But there’s no point in postponing it any longer: the Investigative Committee (Russia’s main federal investigative agency) now opens a new criminal case against me every day instead of doing morning exercises, every day there are searches somewhere, and the Rabid Printer keeps churning out idiotic laws every single day. Two years ago, you and I started something very important. Usually when people say “you and I,” they mean “we did it and you watched,” but in this case it really was “you and I.” And not even just “we did it and you paid,” but something much broader. It started with our random joint attack on Mister Eyebrows
The cancellation of the tenders he had announced and his subsequent dismissal inspired all of us to launch a public project to monitor government procurement.
Inspired us, yes—but we’re always inspired anyway, and hiring lawyers required money.
So on February 2, 2011, we took what at the time was a very risky step: we decided to raise money for RosPil on the internet: “Don’t hide your money away in banks and corners.”
Our realistic target was 3 million rubles for the year.
Within a week we had raised 3.5 million.
By the end of February, 5 million, after which we stopped active fundraising, though money kept coming in.
By the end of August, 8 million.
By the end of December, 8.6 million.
To this day, we consider that fundraising campaign a major success and hugely beneficial in itself.
Looking at our example, everyone started raising money online for civic and political work, and many have managed to collect sums in the millions that previously seemed completely out of reach.
Of course, there were problems along the way.
The FSB used Nashi activists (pro-Kremlin youth movement members) to call RosPil donors.
Counterintelligence sent letters to Yandex.
And one idiot deputy from United Russia (and former Nashi activist) is still firing off inquiries claiming there were never tens of thousands of donors and that this is all “money laundering.”
Even so, it worked. RosPil is funded directly by a huge number of Russian citizens.
The project employs lawyers fighting corruption in public procurement. They fight as effectively as it is possible for a public organization in this country, one that is not authorized to walk into procurement departments and blast everyone with a shotgun.
In any case, RosPil is an order of magnitude more effective than any state body. And a lot can be uncovered without even leaving your computer in Moscow.
We are enormously proud that we created the most transparent public-interest project around.
You can see who works here, what they do, and assess how effective they are. Every kopeck is accounted for.
The money was spent on nothing except RosPil staff salaries and the taxes on those salaries.
We have public overseers who have the password to our Yandex wallet.
drugoi dolboeb plushev olegmakarenko.ru
Once again, I want to take this opportunity to thank them—their transparency guarantees played a major role in helping us raise these funds.
You’ve probably already guessed where I’m going with this. Whenever someone spends a long time explaining how wonderful they are, they ask for money at the end.
Yep. That moment has come. The money we raised so briskly in those first couple of months kept RosPil going for two years—and now it’s finally run out.
We are launching a new fundraising campaign for RosPil. And to report once again on the money we’ve already spent, we’ve prepared a report. It’s in presentation format; you can view it here. Don’t be alarmed—we tried to make it simple and not boring, but still informative. The report includes clickable links to everything you might want to verify for yourself. It contains information on RosPil’s lawyers and their performance metrics (the RosPil team grumbles at me and calls it a “quota system”).
There is also information on overall effectiveness:
And so on and so forth. Obviously, some things can’t be included in a report. For example, how do you measure the fact that RosPil’s experience itself sparked mass public interest in monitoring procurement? It turned into a fun game of “make life miserable for a crook.” Hundreds of people dig through procurement records, find something suspicious, publish it, and file complaints using our templates. RosPil is, without question, the main public organization engaged in practical anti-corruption work (though, to our dismay and horror, it is also almost the only one). Even officials who hate us invite RosPil people to their showy Medvedev-era “meetings” “on” “fighting” “corruption,” where we are among the very few who can offer something concrete rather than empty chatter. RosPil staff spend a huge amount of time in the State Duma, fighting for anti-corruption amendments to the Federal Contract System law, which we ourselves drafted. It’s not an easy fight. There’s not much help from anyone, because nobody understands a damn thing about it—but once the law is passed, everyone will be clutching their heads at how awful it is. In short, we do a lot. We do it together with you, and we believe we are earning every bit of the money you give us. Once again, we are ready to explain very clearly what we need the money for and how we will spend it. Here is the calculation of what a RosPil lawyer costs (from the same report).
As you can see, during the first year your money paid for a lawyer’s salary (60,000 rubles) and the taxes on it (21,000 rubles). All other expenses—office, internet, and so on—were covered first by me personally, and later by our Anti-Corruption Foundation. That kind of cross-subsidizing is the wrong approach; it leads to murkiness, lack of transparency, and confusion. This time we’re turning RosPil completely inside out. Sorry for the poetic metaphor. Here is our foundation (we’ve only just started building the site, so for now it’s mostly financial information). Here is our foundation’s financial report, where you can see what the money is being spent on. If you see “major donor” in the income section, it refers to one of these people. RosPil remains the most self-contained project. If you donate money to RosPil, you can be sure it will go only to RosPil—not to RosYama, not to DMP, and so on. The best part is that even if, for example, you personally can’t stand me but do support fighting corruption, you can still donate to RosPil with complete confidence. It is fully autonomous and independent—even now in terms of office costs and other expenses. The cost of maintaining a RosPil lawyer consists of salary (70,000 rubles), taxes on that salary (28,000 rubles), office rent and utilities allocated per employee (17,000 rubles), and other expenses (internet, communications, stationery—3,000 rubles). We are moving all projects to this model. I myself, since I occupy one of the rooms in the Anti-Corruption Foundation office, will pay sublease rent to the foundation for it—about 250,000 rubles a year. A fully market-rate price, with zero difference between the lease and sublease rates. It’s bitter and unpleasant, but if we’re going to establish rules, they have to be the same for everyone. Let me remind you that I receive no salary from the Foundation. Everyone who does can be seen here. How much are we planning to raise in total over the year? There’s a slide about that with a magic little bag:
9.034 million rubles per year for lawyers. If we raise more, the next priority is an online complaint-tracking system so that you can easily and conveniently follow the progress of investigations. Here, take a look—we’ve started building it using procurement by the Chechen Interior Ministry as an example. Regional branches. So far we have RosPil-UrFO operating (and quite successfully). Each additional branch will cost 740,000 rubles per year. That’s priority number three. So there you have it. I hope I’ve been convincing enough for you to say, “alright, alright! where do I send the money already?” You can send RosPil a New Year’s gift—and all the crooks RosPil will be poking with a stick a New Year’s card as well—in the following ways: Yandex.Money (as usual). Wallet number: 41001859832724 Because of the peculiarities of our legislation, as before, with Yandex.Money you are technically just giving the money to me personally. I transfer the entire amount to RosPil, minus the bank commission, and no personal income tax arises. Bank transfer to RosPil’s sub-account within the Anti-Corruption Foundation (the money goes only to RosPil): Payee: Non-profit organization “Anti-Corruption Foundation” Taxpayer ID (INN): 7709471429 Bank: OJSC “ALFA-BANK,” Moscow Settlement account: 40703810702710000003 Correspondent account: 30101810200000000593 BIC: 044525593 Payment purpose: Donation for the implementation of the “RosPil” project. VAT not applicable. Here is a pre-filled payment form. PayPal We hadn’t used it before, but now we’ve decided to try it. You can also send money there from a regular bank card. If you use PayPal, go here. All the available ways to become a RosPil donor are listed here in a convenient format, along with a special disclaimer for all sorts of idiots from United Russia and the Russian Ministry of Justice:
We’re also working on SMS donations and similar options, but progress is slow.
The recent searches/detentions/arrests have scared off banks, processing companies, and so on, and managers often visibly blanch when they hear “Anti-Corruption Foundation” and “Navalny.”
So, honestly, our main hope in fundraising is the one thing no FSB or Investigative Committee can ban: thousands of people making small donations.
Of course, RosPil will be very grateful not only for the donations themselves (naturally!), but also if you share this post and spread the word that we’re fundraising again.
If you’ve sent us money, it would be great if you posted about it on your social network. This isn’t just about spreading information; it’s also about your friends/followers seeing that someone they know, someone close to them, isn’t afraid and believes it is right and necessary to support RosPil.
Remember: every ruble sent to RosPil means one small problem for a thieving official.
We’ll publish updates on the fundraising progress and also execute the RosPil team live on air if we fail to raise the money.
Thank you in advance.