The Bank of Russia has published a review of charitable practices in the banking sector. The head of the INFRAGRIN platform, Svetlana Bik, published her point of view on this topic.
The document describes the mechanics of mediation. This is a useful and timely inventory. But, as S.Bik noted, there remains a question beyond her scope that interests many and which has already elegantly outlined the Rating of AK&M charitable foundations, dividing it with an asterisk in the table: what is the total contribution of banks to Russian charity, if we take into account not only what they pass through themselves, but also what they donate themselves?
Until recently, charity in Russia was primarily a reaction: a person saw a story on social media, sent an SMS or transferred money to a stranger. According to a joint study by Frank RG and Sber Private Banking, "The charity industry in Russia and the role of major philanthropists in it — 2025," cited by the head of the INFRAGRIN platform, today more than half of Russian donors switch to regular donations. The volume of private contributions increased to 110 billion rubles in 2024 from 71 billion rubles in 2021, an increase of 55% over three years.
In terms of the share of GDP, Russian charity is still about 0.26%, which is about five times less than the American level.
According to a December VTsIOM survey, 73% of Russians have participated in charity over the past four to five years, with 82% of them doing so regularly.
Banks are the founders and main donors of large charitable foundations, and as such they are among the largest institutional benefactors in the country.
The rating of corporate charitable foundations of AK&M for 2026, covering 199 organizations, clearly shows this, S.Bik noted.
Thus, the VTB-Strana fund ranks third with expenditures on targeted activities of 4 billion rubles, and this is with an increase of 167.7% over the year. Sberbank's "Contribution to the Future" is in seventh place with 2.1 billion rubles. The Social Responsibility Fund, affiliated with Gazprombank, is in sixteenth place with expenses of 1.3 billion rubles, which have more than doubled over the year. Kazan's Ak Bars Creation is in the third ten with 623 million rubles of targeted expenses.
In total, only four of these funds allocated about 8 billion rubles for social purposes.
The AK&M rating introduces a methodological distinction that deserves special attention. The agency as a whole is distinguished by its accuracy in working with data — and here this is reflected in a characteristic detail, adds S.Bik. The Central Bank's review is written with a specific and well-founded objective: to systematize the best technological practices so that other market participants can replicate them.
In April 2026, the AK&M Rating Agency presented the fifth rating of charitable foundations supported by Russian companies. The rating was prepared with the support of VTB Bank and was based on a single criterion – the volume of target expenditures of funds.
The rating of charitable foundations has been published by the AK&M Rating Agency since 2022. It includes corporate foundations, that is, charitable organizations where the founders include large corporations that control their activities, as well as charitable foundations that actively cooperate with large companies, receiving support from them and participating in joint projects.
