Private giving. In Romania a minority of people donate to charity on a regular basis. The CSDF/ISRA survey revealed that 39% of Romanian citizens made donations in 2004 (9% of them often or very often and 30% sometimes), while 44% never made donations during the year.The CSDF/ISRA survey also refers that the average annual amount donated by individual Romanians is around 2% of an individual’s income or 1% of a household’s income.
Corporate Philanthropy. A limited range of Romanian civil society organisations receive funding from the private sector. The study on Romanian philanthropy, undertaken by the ARC and Allavida in 2003, indicates that 61% of all businesses surveyed have never made any donation to charitable purposes. The percentage of companies supporting CSOs’ activities is even more limited. Even if they occupy the first place among the recipient organizations, NGOs receive only 18.4% of the total business donations (closely followed by schools and kindergartens (17.1%) and Church with 16%).
Data show that the average donation of companies in Romania is around 0.4% of their annual turnover. Comparatively, studies completed in US show that on average a company makes a donation of around 1.2% of its annual pre-tax income.
The areas which received most of the funding from the business sector are religious (13%) and educational and research activities which together receive 9.8%. Issues such as charity, health and social services are also high up in the hierarchy. On the other hand environmental protection, human rights and democracy are given a lesser interest by companies.
2% Law: Thanks to the 2% law Romanian taxpayers are allowed to direct up to two percent from their annual income tax to a non-profit entity, at their choice.
2005 was the first year that this percentage prevision was applicable in Romania.
Preliminary data regarding the use of the 2% law for 2006 indicate that individual taxpayers donated more than 3 million euros and that the number of citizens who used this mechanism doubled in 2006 respect the previous year. However, the level of participation representing only 4% of the potential contributors.
The Association for Community Relations (ACR), the American Chamber of Commerce in Romania and the Foundation for the Development of Civil Society (FDCS) held a research for evaluating the impact of the 2% law in 2006. The study reveals that, on a sample of 422 taxpayer, about 50% have no knowledge about the provision, 15% have limited knowledge and only 30% have correct information about it.
However the knowledge of the 2% law doesn’t lead directly to action and only a one quarter of the respondents declare that they have made use of it.
The study reveals also that taxpayer with higher level of education and higher income are more likely to know about the provision. Have declared to know about the 2% law 46% of managers, while only 26% of unskilled labour say to know about it.
The future tendency seems positive. According to the research half of respondents mention that they plan to make use of the 2%law in the future, while only 6% are contrary to use the provision
