Abstract:

The article considers the retrospective and modern aspects of the development of charitable activity in the socio-economic sense, which is the assistance to other persons at the expense of own welfare or free time, and provided that this assistance does not harm other persons and is carried out within the law. Charity should benefit not only the immediate recipient of benefit but also society as a whole. The authors emphasize that the conducted study supports their hypothesis that under the conditions of globalization, society increasingly focuses on social issues that arise as a result of insufficient state resources and so charity becomes a factor in their successful resolution. The development of charity is a system of social, economic, and cultural factors. One of the stages of the development of charity was the creation of charitable foundations specializing in various fields: scientific, cultural, sporting, educational projects, assistance to needy families, help for orphanages, hospitals, fundraising for expensive treatment and other projects. In today’s world, the attitude towards charity as a professional occupation has become widespread, becoming a “social norm.” Charitable funds are a separate and important component of the charitable institution. The concept of “charity” came into the public consciousness as a humanistic call of a person to go to the needy, regardless of religious, national, racial, social affiliation or political or ideological beliefs. Retrospective analysis showed that forms of philanthropy in the advanced form existed already in ancient Rome and ancient Greece; in medieval Europe, they already acquired the status of state and social policy at the legislative level. In the Christian aspect of ancient Rus of the adoption of the Orthodox faith in 988, the foundations of charity are laid as socio-ethical norms of society. In the second half of the XVIII century, as a result of secularization, charitable societies, hospitals, almshouses, open by public organizations and private individuals arise, that is, there are social and state institutions of charity. And charitable funds, which are socio-economic professional activities, are beginning to develop. From ancient to modern times, charitable activity is carried out in the forms of patronage, sponsorship, volunteering, fundraising. Modern trends of charity include: increase of the non-profit sector and its internationalization; cooperation of charitable foundations, development of a social partnership with business, state bodies, and foreign funds; professionalization through the creation of network charity. In turn, charity abroad is characterized by growing professionalism, a variety of forms and programs of cooperation, the growth and expansion of the sphere itself and its importance for non-profit, in particular, socio-cultural activities. The undisputed leader in this area is the USA – the birthplace of modern sponsorship and fundraising. The authors conditionally distinguish three levels of charity. The typology and general characteristics of foreign charitable foundations, typical for the USA, European countries, and Ukraine, are presented. Features of creation and functioning of quasi-public funds are considered. On a global scale, the foreign activity of the US foundations is significant, and the expenditures exceed the official foreign aid budgets of many countries. However, their presence in Ukraine is relatively low. The volume of support is negligible compared to official support amounts: according to the OECD, the amount of grants actually received by Ukraine from other states and multilateral donors in 2011–2017 amounted to more than 5 billion USD while less than 0.1 billion USD came to Ukraine from US foundations. But this does not exclude the role of private donors in solving certain problems, in particular, in terms of supporting civil society, protecting the rights of vulnerable groups of the population, etc.

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