Salvation Army: Czechs do not give less to charity, but state cuts are excessive

Christmas is the season to be merry, and in many cultures it is also a season of giving. In the Czech Republic this is only a growing trend, and given the uncertain economic climate, charity is not necessary the first thing on people’s minds. Radio Prague spoke to Michael Stannett, the head of the Czech branch of the Salvation Army, or Armada Spasy, in Czech, and asked him if the current economic downturn has had a negative effect on how much people were willing to open their pocketbooks this Christmas season.

Michael Stannett, photo: Archive of ČRo 7

“From what we’ve seen, there hasn’t been a noticeable decrease in donations from private citizens. We do bell ringing during the Christmas period in the marketplaces and people are happy to contribute in that form. And postal campaigns and the text donations that we receive have not been affected. Which was a big surprise, actually.

“Philanthropy in the Czech Republic is a growing tendency and it still isn’t part of the general population’s psyche to make donations to organizations like Armada Spasy. What we are finding is that younger people are happy to donate through the internet or the DMS text messaging service. So we are developing this area quite a lot in the last couple of years.

Organizations like your cannot rely solely on the support of individual or corporate donations, you also rely on support from public funds. How has that cooperation worked in the past year and during this holiday season?

Photo: Archive of ČRo 7

“The lion share of the funding that we need to run our social programs does come from the state or municipalities. And this is an area where the state has been cutting back – making funding available for the social sector. We understand the need for savings, but we feel that they are making bigger savings than the situation calls for.

“Yes, there is an economic downturn, but this is the time to be supporting the social sector more, not less, because there are more people in need. We don’t know what our funding is going to be for next year, but all of our projects are currently surviving on, what we call, emergency budgets.

“We’ve had to cut back our budgets by at least 25%, just to be able to keep the project open. And we also had to cut some services. The government has particularly cut back on funding to municipalities for work with seniors. There is a growing senior population, so, again, this an area where you shouldn’t be cutting back, but an area where you should increase the budget.”

Are there programs where people volunteer to services in situations where you cannot fund the program – for example for the elderly?

Illustrative photo: CTK

“Yes, there is growing interest in this area. Of course, in an economic downturn, people tend to want to be paid for the work they do. But there is a growing number of volunteers. We would like to see more of that happening.

“On Christmas day – on the 24th – when we were holding some parties for the homeless, there were volunteers from the public who wanted to come a long and make Christmas have a little more meaning for themselves. They volunteered their time serving up food and sitting and chatting with people.

“And in one or two places where we’ve had to close down our services, where we would have otherwise had professionals working with seniors, we were able to replace them with free-time activities. And that is generally done by volunteers.

“So, it is beginning to happen a bit more regularly. But it takes time to build that sort of relationship up with local people and encourage them to come come along the help the Salvation Army.”