On behalf of IIS the conference was attended by Louisa Rizmanova, Director of Department of International Cooperation and Public Relations. She distributed among participants of the conference information on the program of technological support to non-commercial organizations (NCO) “infoDonor”, which provides NCO and public libraries access to programs of software and hardware donations from partners-donors.

The welcoming speech was delivered by Larisa Zelkova, First Deputy Chairman of the Commission on charity and volunteerism of the Civic Chamber of RF, who emphasized that regional charity, nowadays, gets to a brand new level, some regions have experience of projects implementation at the local and federal levels, which will be presented at the conference.

In the morning hours the plenary discussion on “Charity in the regions: two sides of one medal. View of the regions and of the center” took place, which was attended by Artyom Shadrin, Director of the Department of Innovative Development of the Ministry of Economic Development of RF representatives of Vladimir Potanin Charity Foundation,  Association of Manager of Russia, Foundation of Elena and Gennady Timchenko and «Vympelkom» OJSC;  and in the course of which issues were discussed related to the work of large donor organizations in the regions, their cooperation with leaders of the local non-commercial sector and public authorities, as well as establishing stable regional programs.

Further the plenary session was followed by a discussion on the NVOs work in the regions, in the course of which issues were examined related to implementation of initiatives in the private sphere through NCOs, which act as intermediaries between benefactors and recipients. Why are intermediaries required, and what is the value added of the private initiative in comparison with direct interaction with the state? Svetlana Shibaeva, Deputy Minister of Regional Policy of Novosibirsk region, representatives of Archangelsk Center of Social Technologies “Guarantor”, Charity Fund «Constellation of Hearts» and intellectual park “Academia” acted as speakers at the session.   Then work of the conference was divided into sections, within the frameworks of which the following topics were discussed:

• Evaluation and measuring of social results
• Professionalism of regional operators
• Big and medium business: how to solve problems of the community together
• Provincial charity stories.

During afternoon a meeting of the Committee on Corporate Social Responsibility of the Association of Managers of Russia took place on “Development of intersectorial partnership business-state-NCO as an efficient form of social investments of companies”, which was attended by representatives of the Governor of Tula Region, Civic Chamber of the  Tver Region, Social Security Department of Ulyanovsk Region.