Who owns the river must share it with everyone

While philanthropic achievements on the global stage are public, the wealthiest Croatian citizens are quite modest in their giving. It is known that private donations are made by Ivica Todorić, Branko Roglić, Plinio Cuccurin, and the most generous in donations – Ante Vlahović. However, on the Croatian donor scene, companies are the most generous.

writes Zdravko Basarić
[email protected]

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, once amazed the world with his software solutions, and his knack for computing brought him to the position of one of the richest people in the world. A second time, and in a completely different area, Gates again shook the global stage by announcing that he would direct most of his wealth to the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation, whose primary goal is to fight poverty and advocate for better healthcare. To date, it is known that Bill Gates has donated more than $28 billion to that foundation to finance vaccination programs against tuberculosis and polio, as well as scientific research on drugs for AIDS and malaria. At the same time, he called on other billionaires from the group of the richest people in the world to get involved in the Foundation’s work and to spend at least part of their wealth for the common good. That call resonated.

Thus, Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, who was treated for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, announced that after his death he would leave most of his wealth for philanthropic purposes, and a similar intention was expressed by Warren Buffett, also one of the richest people in the world. To date, the Foundation has raised about $40 billion. And Bill Gates’ initiative is more or less supported in other parts of the world, so in China, the largest philanthropist Chen Guangbiao has his guiding thought summarized in just two sentences: ‘If you have a glass of water, one person will drink it. A bucket of water will suffice for one family, but whoever owns a river must share it with everyone.’ According to Forbes magazine, last year there were 64 dollar billionaires in China, and 403 in the USA. Although American philanthropic investments are hard to reach, in China, just for illustration, last year €3.8 billion was donated.

Private donations
And while philanthropic initiatives and their achievements on the global stage are public and quite well-known, the wealthiest Croatian citizens are quite modest in their giving. It is known that private donations to those in need or those who are in the interest of the local and broader community are made by Ivica Todorić, Branko Roglić, Plinio Cuccurin, and many other Croatian entrepreneurs. However, all of them have been surpassed in private donations by Ante Vlahović, the president of the Adris group, who donated one and a half million euros to orphaned children and, in addition, all the fees he received over the last twenty years as a member of supervisory boards. However, on the Croatian donor scene, excluding sports clubs and organizations and the most prominent individual athletes, in whose donations part is about assistance and part about marketing calculations, the most generous are companies with many initiatives, programs, and realizations in the philanthropic spectrum. Croatian companies are the most generous in donations and sponsorships for helping children and youth, then for humanitarian activities and cultural events and the preservation of cultural heritage.

Spectrum of actions
This is illustrated by several data on the amounts donated by Croatian companies. In the last ten years, the Adris group has allocated more than 70 million kuna for financing various cultural, humanitarian, and similar projects, and the Foundation allocates one percent of its profits from the previous year every year. The Foundation was secured an initial amount of 10 million kuna at its establishment. So far, it has awarded 17 million kuna, including four million for 34 projects in the field of knowledge and discovery, 3.2 million kuna awarded to the best students, 2.3 million kuna for 33 projects in the field of creativity, 3.7 million kuna for 32 projects dealing with the promotion and preservation of ecology and heritage, and 3.8 million kuna for donations in the field of goodness. The Privredna banka Zagreb continuously shows care for children, which among its donations includes one intended for the humanitarian association For Children of Croatia in the form of monthly financial support of 300 kuna per child for 350 children cared for by the Association.

Under the slogan ‘I do good every day’, for every purchase made with the American Express card with a heart, 35 lipa is donated for the project of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare of the Republic of Croatia ‘Monitoring children with neurodevelopmental risks’, while the purchase cost for the user remains the same. The collected funds are donated by PBZ Card to hospitals across Croatia involved in the project for the purchase of necessary devices such as a brain ultrasound device, hip probes, pulse oximeters, cameras, and many others. In addition to helping gifted students and children in need and the sick, Croatian companies dedicate a lot of money and numerous actions to humanitarian work. Among the range of actions, we will mention some: since 2006, Hrvatski Telekom has supported emergency services by procuring medical equipment and donating money. Assistance to emergency services has been provided in 12 cities, and the total value of previous donations to healthcare is more than 10 million kuna. As part of the ‘Together we are stronger’ action, in which T-HT employees participate with proposals for humanitarian projects, this year one million kuna has been donated for 27 humanitarian projects across Croatia.

Valuable initiatives
In two years of existence, the American Express card with a heart has collected almost one million kuna, for which medical devices have been purchased for as many as eleven hospitals in Croatia. Zagrebačka banka has allocated 750,000 kuna this year for 25 valuable initiatives and has so far supported 1,124 projects with 19.5 million kuna. The bank has allocated this year’s main donation of 300,000 kuna to the Association All for Her for the needs of equipping and starting the work of the Center for Psychological Assistance for women suffering from cancer. With this donation, Zaba has continued its long-standing practice of supporting humanitarian projects. A humanitarian action ‘And words heal’ has begun, which collects money for the continuous operation of the Center. PBZ has been involved in Caritas’s action ‘For a Thousand Joys’ since 2003. The goal of the campaign is to raise money from the amounts that companies have allocated for Christmas and New Year’s celebrations to provide assistance to 1,000 low-income families in Croatia. The Adris group financed the procurement of valuable medical equipment for the Pula hospital and the Zagreb Clinical Hospital Center Rebro, traditionally collaborates with the Red Cross and Caritas, financially supports homes for the elderly and disabled, and various humanitarian projects such as ‘Let them hear’ and those of the Ana Rukavina Foundation.