Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Dmitry Medvedev: Mr Potanin, we could talk about many issues now, such as various aspects to do with the investment climate in our country, business taxation and numerous other issues related to business development. But I would like to touch upon the other question which you take a big interest in – the legal regulation of charitable activities. We have been discussing a number of issues with you in this regard – some of the ideas I discussed with you and with colleagues have resulted in normative acts, including the well-known law on endowments.

Despite certain results having been achieved, the regulation of charitable activities in our country still leaves a lot to be desired, to put it bluntly. In my opinion, there are still very few incentives for developing charitable activities. It is always a balance of filling the treasury coffers and encouraging the kind of activities that people as a rule follow their heart to do – but this legal framework has to be improved. To make these processes run more systematically, I recently set up the council on charitable activities in the social sphere. The Government will be involved in this work. I hope it will prove effective. If you have any ideas in this regard, I would be interested to hear them.      

Vladimir Potanin: Mr Medvedev, with your permission I would also like to return to this issue. As you remember, several years ago, with your assistance, the base was set up to develop special-purpose capital funds (endowments) and today this process is running at a much higher level, with dozens of endowments having been created. In the near future the 100^th endowment will be set up, with billions of dollars already invested in them. This concerns primarily universities, who establish endowments as a result of their graduates, once they become financially successful, supporting them. In this case we are following the experience of other countries, where endowments have existed for centuries, and we are doing so at a fairly rapid pace.

Museums are starting to go down this path as well. I think we are at a phase now where this process could be given a new impetus. As you rightly pointed out, this could be of a legislative nature but at the very least it should recognise contributions into endowments as charitable activities, as today the law does not directly recognise them as charitable donations. There are, of course, many finer points here, including the more obvious ones.

You also mentioned incentives. In my opinion, mass charity is always in need of incentives. Today, charitable activities are carried out either by rich people who are keen to do something for society, or by corporations. But experience shows that only charitable activities on a massive scale can create a real, solid base for developing voluntary work, philanthropy and other kinds of charitable activities. In this regard, a publicity drive and perhaps even certain measures of state support for these ideas could be important.

As I understand it, the decision has been taken to increase the grants provided to Russian organisations. But I think maybe we could summarise the existing experience in organising tenders for setting up endowments…The Government might channel some of the finances for supporting the endowments that are already being established. For instance, the following scheme could be used: if people manage to collect some finances for an endowment, the Government could add a small sum to provide an extra incentive. The Civic Chamber Commission for the Development of Charity and Volunteering has many ideas in this regard. It would be great if you could pay specific attention to this issue for a while… This problem requires a certain consistency and one-off measures will not be enough here, and I am very glad that you have given me the opportunity to return to this issue again as I think it is very important.        

Dmitry Medvedev: It really is important and you are correct in mentioning the massive scale of these activities. Even with all the importance of special-purpose capital funds, they cannot be established solely through donations from wealthy individuals, or even with the involvement of the state here and there – although that does serve the purpose of giving them a certain appeal by creating a sort of attractiveness and focusing attention on them. On the whole, in most countries these kinds of projects only prove successful when charitable activities become a mass phenomenon, with relatively small amounts contributed to raise funds of both endowments and other charitable foundations donated by people who act from the best of motives. So creating legal regulations to give incentives for our citizens in this regard – I think that is definitely something worth discussing.

<...>