Dragon Capital Spends Over UAH 160 Million on Charity in 2020
The Dragon Capital group of companies, its CEO Tomas Fiala, and company employees contributed more than UAH 160 million for charity and sponsorship projects in 2020 under the company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) program, supporting Ukraine’s economic, educational and social development.
As we work to help people and companies achieve more, we cannot ignore the challenges facing Ukraine, and we believe we can endure everything being cooperative.
As in the past five years, this means focusing our efforts on four key commitments:
Ukraine’s economic development (assistance to Ukrainian think tanks and independent analytical platforms promoting reforms intended to improve the business climate and fight corruption); education (development of educational institutions, platforms and programs); assistance to doctors and hospitals fighting COVID-19, helping children and the Ukrainian army; and culture, leisure and sports.
Ukraine’s economic development
Proceeding with structural reforms and achieving sustainable economic growth requires that Ukrainian policymakers and civil servants receive independent analyses on the most important aspects of public policy along with constructive feedback from economists and lawyers on key economic and political decisions. We consider support for think tanks and analytical platforms providing such advice a very important element of our CSR, as it stands to positively affect the Ukrainian economy. In this respect, we supported the Center for Economic Strategy (an independent policy think tank), the Anticorruption Action Center, and Transparency International, among others. Overall, projects promoting reforms to improve the business climate and fight corruption received more than UAH 10 million.
Education
We are proud to be contributing to the development of education in Ukraine and funding educational programs. We bought a new home for the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) — a 4,441 sq. m. office building in Kyiv. We are investing a significant amount, more than $5.3 million, in the purchase and reconstruction, and we expect a significant positive effect for Ukraine as a result. Our country critically needs the right economic change that is impossible to achieve without professional economists. We hope that the new building will help the KSE raise the bar even higher, increase the number of its students and become an important educational and economic analytical center in Ukraine. We also financed the completion of the Collegium of the Ukrainian Catholic University, supported the Ukrainian Leadership Academy, and funded other educational projects. All in all we allocated over UAH 149 million.
Assistance to doctors and hospitals during COVID-19, children and Ukrainian army
In response to the healthcare crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we marshaled our resources to protect Ukrainian doctors by providing them with personal protective equipment, such as medical masks and protective costumes. The ongoing military conflict in eastern Ukraine requires maintaining assistance for the Ukrainian army. We raised nearly UAH 2.2 million for doctors, orphanages, kindergartens, the children’s hospital Ohmatdyt, and for the Ukrainian army (through the Army SOS volunteer organization).
Culture, leisure, sports
Dragon Capital also donated over UAH 0.6 million for the organization of Kyivman, the first extreme triathlon contest in Ukraine, supported the interactive performance “Contact Line” about the war in Donbas, sponsored the translation of the audio guide in the Prague Castle into Ukrainian, and other projects.
About Dragon Capital — Dragon Capital is one of the largest groups of companies in Ukraine that works in the field of direct investments and financial services, providing a full range of investment banking and brokerage services for corporate and private clients. The company was founded in 2000 in Kyiv and has a successful 20-year track record of private equity investments in Ukraine.