I love my free time and I am using it wisely to develop myself and do more for the animals I love so much.
That's why, this week, I attended two fundraising events. One of them was related to the part of the annual income taxes we all pay - or at least we should - the 2% that every employee has the opportunity to donate towards a NGO. Not many people are aware of this possibility, and not many choose to redirect their money for a noble cause. If these money aren't redirected then the state has the right to use them as it wishes...and when you live in a corrupt state like Romania, you don't want that to happen. The state, of course doesn't have any campaigns encouraging people to redirect these 2%, so this is where us, as NGO representatives, step in.
Only recently, big companies stared getting involved in this, and included such employee campaigns in their CSR activity. One of those companies in Romania is Petrom, the largest oil retailer on the market...and as you can imagine their CSR campaigns are pretty generous. For the 2% donation, they basically did a one day round of several NGOs covering different sectors, offering them the opportunity to present their activity and their plans to the company's employees...while encouraging them to responsibly redirect the 2% from last year's income tax.
Another great fundraising event I attended is SSCG, a tradition among animal lovers. The event is a "garage sale" with things donated by people...clothes, accessories, books, shoes...etc. The event takes place every month and even if it was hosted in different locations in the past, now we hold it a very special place...a dog training school and pet hotel :) There's a lot of work in putting everything out for display and the at the end putting them back together, but it's the only time that gives us (people from different animal associations) the opportunity to come together and exchange ideas, cases or experiences we have. It's really nice to interact with people with who you share a passion...