Donations for Ukraine’s Army Drive Bank Services and Entertainment: Here’s How

“Perfect weather for cycling – it’s neither hot nor cold. The race is for charity to support air-defense forces. Lots of awesome people around,” Hurkit Charity Fund Chairman Vlad Samoylenko wrote in his Facebook post announcing a Critical Mass-style event combining bicycle race and charity.

The event was called “Bike Air Defense” and included two rides: one around Trukhaniv Island that was organized for athletic cyclists, another one is a bike parade for women, aiming to attract attention that women are underrepresented as cyclists. Apart from Hurkit, Ukraine’s bike NGOs were two organizers – U-cycle and Kyiv Hundred.

But it is not just about sport and diversity. Hurkit organized the event to collect donations for Kyiv region air defense units that take down Russia’s drones.

Volunteers need to collect half a million hryvnia ($12,130) to purchase a list of equipment for them – the 104th territorial defense brigade and the 92nd separate anti-tank battalion each need two thermal imagery scopes and two charging stations, the 92nd battalion also needs two searchlights.

The charity event gathered 180 participants. “We collected almost Hr.200,000 [$4,850] IN TOTAL,” Samoylenko told Kyiv Post. This is almost a half of what’s needed.

This is not the first Hurkit event. The charity fund was created after the beginning of the full-scale invasion and decided to collect donations through sport events. Since then, Hurkit organized two charity run and swimming races, a bike race, amateur ping-pong competition and even a musical festival with sports venues.

These events helped the fund collect money for pickup trucks, firearms and drones for different Ukraine’s brigades.

Women riding bicycles in Kyiv during Hurkit’s “Bike Air Defense” charity bike event. Source: U-Cycle.

Despite Ukraine hitting records on defense spending, the volumes of ammunition needed in the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) are still not enough to cover by the state. This is why Ukraine’s charity funds, companies, banks, individual volunteers and soldiers themselves create thousands of “zbory” (plural, “zbir” singular) – fundraising campaigns for military purposes or frontline territories only. 

It became so large that Ukraine’s leading retail banks created special tools for allocating cash and the country’s largest festivals reopened after two years of an unwritten society ban for entertainment.

Hurkit is just one of the players on this enormous market.

The Bank and The Banka

Back in 2020, Ukraine’s popular retail bank Monobank created Banka – a sophisticated tool to save money from Monobank credit or debit cardS, as well as organize a joint fundraising with other people.

A savings instrument is not new for Ukraine’s banking system – the founders of Monobank used to lead the country’s largest bank, PrivatBank, that worked for individuals and small, medium-sized enterprises launched their own savings instrument, Skarbnychka, years before.

But Monobank’s product had another feature – a client from any bank could open Banka via a link and allocate money there with just a few clicks.

What was first created as a personal savings tool became the most prominent banking instrument for soldiers to start fundraising campaigns after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

Ukraine’s Monobank is a fully digitalized bank without a single brick-and-mortar branch, so it became very popular among Gen Z and millennials unwilling to deal with traditional banks. This was another factor that boosted the use of Banka – it makes it very easy to share the fundraising announcement about Zbir on social media, particularly Instagram.

The list of the armed forces’ needs became massive: drones, military equipment, charging stations, optics, guns, advanced ammunition for soldiers, pickup trucks and cars, antennas and even fuel.

Results of Monobank’s fundraising campaign for Ukraine’s Armed Forces in 2022 – almost Hr.9 million allocated. Source: Monobank’s social media. 

Banka is now used to allocate money from fundraising campaigns by soldier’s relatives who need to buy advanced equipment the state cannot finance officially, volunteers who run charity funds and sustainably procure the army units according to their needs or bloggers who launch a fundraising campaign for their friends in the military or per military unit requests.

If the donation needed is thousands of hryvnia and is organized by individuals, they split a huge donation into smaller ones that should be collected by a separate person.

“Our 10-million hryvnia [$250,000] Zbir called ‘Air Defense Jedis’ allocated 20% of the sum with the help of 70 ambassadors. We invite friends and other people to join large fundraising campaigns – they announce smaller donations fundraising of 5,10 or 100 thousand hryvnia. So, another benefit from these campaigns is an increased awareness,” Samoylenko explained to Kyiv Post.

Other Ukrainian banks quickly updated the features in their apps to donate for Ukraine’s largest charity funds collecting cash for the army. After two years of war, Privatbank launched an alternative – “Envelopes”. Did it help?

Monobank said Ukrainians had donated Hr.27.4 billion ($685 million) in 2023 and Hr.8.5 billion ($232,24 million) in 2022. Kyiv Post asked for clarification extra data for 9 months of 2024, but Monobank did not comment. Privatbank didn’t provide data on how much cash was collected using Envelopes despite agreeing to comment when asked by Kyiv Post. 

Buy and Sell for the Ukrainian Armed Forces

Veronika Kobzysta, 9.Department communications agency CEO, needed to collect Hr.650.000 ($16.250) for a medical evacuation vehicle for a border guard unit in Krasnohorivka as requested by the charity fund UAFirstAid.

Kobzysta could not allocate such a huge sum alone, but the army needed help. “We asked all our friends to open small Bankas. In addition, we held a charity auction in honor of my birthday and sold things at a flea market for donations. We also asked Anton Tymoshenko [Ukraine’s popular standup comedian] to repost our fundraising announcement,” Kobzysta told Kyiv Post.

9.Department communications agency CEO Veronika Kobzysta and UAFirstAid charity fund cofounder Olena Zenchenko holding the cash for the AFU from Kobzysta’s birthday charity auction. Photo provided by Mykhailo Syhomlyn,.

The flea market Kobzysta mentioned is the SHUK flea market which is happening on Podil in Kyiv on a regular basis. SHUK was created specifically for military fundraising.

“SHUK dedicates every event to a different fundraising objective for the army units. Before the event, all sellers donate. During the event itself, a charity auction is held and after the event all participants are asked to share part of their revenues if they want,” Kobzysta told Kyiv Post, having participated in the flea market as a charity seller herself.

9.Department communications agency CEO Veronika Kobzysta, and UAFirstAid charity fund cofounders Olena Zenchenko and Les Yakumchuk selling at the SHUK Flea Market in Kyiv, Ukraine. Photo provided by Veronika Kobzysta. 

Сharity auctions that fundraise for the military became the new black at events in Ukraine, though auctions also happen separately online.

One of Ukraine’s largest charity funds that fundraises for the military, Prytula Foundation, led by a popular ex-host Serhii Prytula, organizes online auctions of objects used by prominent Ukrainians. They sold the pink hat Kalush Orchestra wore to their winning 2022 Eurovision performance and an Olympic saber used by Ukraine’s Olympic fencing champion Olha Kharlan.

Underground Stand Up club allocates less, but each of their assets raises their bids to tens or thousands of hryvnias. Each concert has a break dedicated to charity auctions where standup comedians sell war trophies – flags from the frontline, empty ammunition boxes and shell cases.

Underground Stand Up club comedians conducting a charity auction to sell a Ukrainian flag signed by soldiers of the Aydar battalion that is now fighting on the frontline. Photo by Olena Hrazhdan.

Underground Stand Up club became so good at conducting auctions they were asked to host them during the breaks between concerts at the ATLAS United 2024 – a post-invasion version of Kyiv’s prominent music festival ATLAS Weekend. Before the full-scale invasion, ATLAS Weekend welcomed the Chemical Brothers, FatBoy Slim, Prodigy, the Black Eyed Peas, John Newman, Skillet, and more.

ATLAS United 2024 reopened after two years of inactivity. It could have been a controversial move to restart a music festival during such a tragic event such as war. Kyiv Post asked ATLAS United press secretary about possible criticism but had received no reply at time of publication. The scandal didn’t happen though – it seems everyone was happy.

Probably because the festival did not reopen in vain. The UNITED24 military fundraising initiative launched by Ukraine’s president Zelensky asked ATLAS to allocate Hr.100 million for drones. And they succeeded.

Transparency and Competition

These charity funds understand transparency is key when it comes to such large sums of cash and publish regular reports on how they spend the money. This is a key feature of how to distinguish a trustworthy fundraising initiative from a fraudulent one.

An example of a report by Hurkit Charity Fund. Source: the fund’s website. 

Being transparent is also a requirement if you want to collect donations sustainably – the sector has become increasingly competitive. Since the beginning of a full-scale invasion until the end of 2023, Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice registered 9,000 charity funds and 6,000 NGOs.

“The demand still greatly exceeds supply. We do not cover the needs covered by the state or large funds, and vice versa. The funds can buy a wholesale batch of drones, but they won’t rapidly cover the need of a specific person or unit,” Lawyers Move Charity Fund CEO Nadiia Denysuik explained to Kyiv Post.

Denysuik also thinks people will switch more from donating to charity funds to collecting cash for their relatives serving in the army because the quantity of the servicemen will only grow. “Which is also fine,” she said. 

But all initiatives serve the same goal – procure for the armed forces and save lives.