Bulgarians are becoming more charity-orientated and are willing to set aside more money or personal time for charitable causes, representatives from three NGOs told a news conference on August 28. But people wishing to donate should exercise more caution when selecting a cause to support, participants from the Bulgarian Donor's Forum (BDF), the Bulgarian Charities Aid Foundation (BCAF) and website save-darina.org, said.

Krassimira Velichkova, BDF's director said that since the founding of the organisation in 2003, said that every year there was a significant increase of the donated money, equipment, services or voluntary labour. BDF's data indicated that in 2007 more than 37 million leva have been donated, whereas for the first six months of 2008, there has been an increase by 30 per cent.

Velichkova said that for the past year, there have been 170 campaigns aimed at various social, cultural, environmental or health-related causes. Throughout the years, people or companies initiating charitable campaigns have learned to successfully engage the media and state institutions, to plead their cases to the general public and achieve their goals.

More people begin to organise charitable campaigns to raise money for health treatment, something that by definition should be the state's responsibility, Velichkova said. This practice is foreign to other European countries, she said.

However, difficulties or mistrust often arise, because the state does not exercise control over companies or individuals who advertise charitable campaigns. One such example is the street selling of post cards, or small souvenirs with the pretext that the money would go for the medical treatment of a child, or the renovation of an old monastery.

Velichkova said that more often then not, personal campaigns remain less transparent, for the people involved seldom find an adequate way to publicly render an account of how the donated money has been spent.

The BDF director advised all future donors to carefully investigate the organisation initiating the campaign, what is the exact amount it is trying to raise and who would benefit from the donated money. When a personal campaign is concerned, Velichkova said, donors should make sure that they deposit money in an accumulative bank account and not in a current bank account, from where money could be easily withdrawn. Before donating, people need to make sure that there is a prepared contract that would later guarantee access to the financial audit of the organisation.

Yordan Petrov from the website save-darina.org said that the charitable site has had an enormous success because of its accountability. Every donor could track the money they have donated at any time. Petrov also said that last year the website has helped raise more than two million leva, primarily for children with health-related needs.

Petrov also said that it was not enough to push 20 leva with a heavy sigh around Christmas and forget about it. People should try to follow up on how the child they donated money for is doing. Donations around holidays simply are not sufficient way to express consideration and care, he said.