OREANDA-NEWS. As of 1 June, 22 social organisations or initiatives will join Swedbank’s donation environment ‘I Love to Help’. Some of them have been involved in this charity programme before.

The organisations or initiatives joining the donation site as of June are: the Food Bank, Estonian Society for the Protection of Animals, SOS Children’s Village, Healthy Estonia Foundation, Dharma, Children and Youth Crisis Programme, Bee Day of the Estonian Fund for Nature, Estonian Cancer Society, Junior Achievement, Estonian Human Rights Centre, Blind Masseurs Association, Self-Help and Advisory Centre for Senior Citizens, CatRescue and Cat Safehouse, University of Tartu Hospital Children’s Foundation, Foster Home Employees Association, Youth to School, NGO Animal Shelters, Estonian Autism Society, Pelgulinna Maternity Hospital Support Foundation, Estonian Union for Child Welfare, project Dunlin of the Estonian Fund for Nature, and Kuulikodu Animal Shelter.

“As always, it was difficult to decide on the organisations to be included in the donation environment. The jury carefully considered all the arguments, and I am sure that the best projects and organisations were chosen,” Maris Ojamuru, Sustainability and Societal Affairs Manager at Swedbank told.

This year the organisations were assessed and selected by a distinguished jury including Agne Tamm from the Good Deed Foundation, Alari Rammo, representative of the Network of Estonian Non-profit Organisations (NENO), Mari-Liis Dolenko from the National Foundation of Civil Society, Tiia Loorand from Enterprise Estonia, presenter-editor of the Estonian Public Broadcasting and the leader of the charity TV-programme Chistmas Tunnel Margus Saar and the leader of the donation environment Maris Ojamuru from Swedbank.

On Wednesday, representatives of the new organisations attended an information event at Swedbank to get an overview of how the donation environment works and be better prepared for the donation year environment beginning in June.

The donation environment ‘I Love to Help’ is able to provide financial support for the activities of charity organisations and to promote ongoing projects. Initiatives can also gain support in a variety of fields from Swedbank’s volunteers. The organisations selected will remain associated with the charity site for one year.

‘I Love to Help’, which was established in 2008, has donated almost 500,000 euros to more than 45 organisations. Swedbank’s clients gave more than 2.7 million bonus points to the site via the reward program in 2012, which amounted to more than 50,000 euros.