Today you are the real rear of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
Recently, a meme appeared on the Internet, in which the correspondence between mother and daughter: "Listen, daughter! Ukrainian volunteers can find everything in an hour. Maybe they will find you and your husband?". Everyone laughs, because really nothing is impossible for our volunteers. The same can be said about people working in charitable foundations. If with the first ones everything is fast and sometimes solved in one minute, with the funds, of course, a little longer. After all, the legal part of the work and cashless payments are not going anywhere.
On February 24, our lives turned 180 degrees and things that were important before the start of the war are now considered as something forgotten and unknown. We were not ready, but we proved that the ability to solve huge problems together is a trait of our nation. In more than a month, so many useful websites, platforms, humanitarian headquarters, and volunteer organizations have been created. Funds that have never worked together come together to achieve a common goal. Volunteers who never knew each other or did not communicate – find any things anywhere in the world. People change professions, become loaders, drivers, logisticians, pharmacists. The Ukrainians have become the whole front and rear of our Armed Forces of Ukraine and, together with the heroic guys, are leading us to victory.
But one thing hasn't changed – it's a scam. After all, not everyone consciously understands what war is and why it is not right now to profit from grief. Abuse of trust, unfortunately, still exists, but we know for sure that such cases are rare. We remember that bright people among all this darkness can be seen from afar.Now requests for help are spread in all chats, social networks. And we understand how difficult it is for a person to figure out which fundraiser to support.
In order not to get into an unpleasant situation and not give funds to scammers, you need to remember banal, but very important things.
Firstly, transfer money only to people you know personally. If you do not know personally, you can only trust those who give their personal recommendation for a particular collection. Now it is very important to carefully read the messages and you can trust those who have already verified the authenticity of the meeting.
Secondly, volunteers who understand their business and value their reputation try to somehow account for it. These can be photo reports, and this is already wonderful.
Third, pay attention to fundraising. Especially the ones you supported before the war. Almost everyone now has active projects that need support. If you don’t know where to look for projects from trusted funds, you can visit the dobro.ua platform website. Here, more than 100 charities raise funds for urgent projects to help victims of the war.
Fourth, support loved ones and relatives. Perhaps their life depends on you. We need to be close to our families and lend a helping hand.
Fifth, spreading the word about fundraising you know and trust will be a huge help. Sometimes a simple repost can allow you to collect the necessary amount of money.
By the way, action. Digital education launched a Telegram bot that checks benefactors for fraud.If you suspect that a certain charity fundraiser is an act of fraud, write to the Stop Ostap chatbot. And the algorithm of actions is very simple: you need to send text, video or photo evidence of the alleged fraud. All such messages are processed by the competent authorities and no one will escape punishment for their illegal actions.
The main thing is to be kind, despite all the horrors that we all had to live with. Help each other support initiatives, foundations and volunteers.
Philanthropists are the rear of our Armed Forces.
Dobro.ua PR column by Tetiana Raikova-Pylypchuk.
