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Founder and CEO of rusini.org is well accustomed to overcoming the challenges that face her in Russia and beyond

As a serial entrepreneur, Vladlena Taraskina, boasts seven years’ experience in marketing and strategic management, businesses in Russia and Austria, and dabbled in online gaming platforms before making her move into the burgeoning field of Russian crowdfunding.

When starting her crowdfunding platform rusini.org, she recalls that there was little infrastructure in place by which to share and collect funds for different projects, yet her tool did not garner the initial support that one might expect. “I thought people need a platform. There is money and will, but no easy way to harness the two and make this open. And my idea was to make the tool and infrastructure to connect people. But it wasn’t straight forward. There needed to be education on both sides,” she explains.

Having seen the idea of mobilizing the "crowd" - usually just regular members of the public - to contribute often small but many amounts of money to independent projects in practice in both Europe and the United States, Taraskina struggled to show people its relevance when she first introduced the new method of sourcing funding. She was aware of a significant incoherence between social aims and NGO initiatives that seemed somewhat unbridgeable. “Foreign platforms don’t really work in Russia so people find local ones. They adapt ideas.

“Crowdfunding became popular and more well-known through other things; like cinema, music. Basically, people in communities collected money for small, individual projects and now more and more people are looking at that and seeing the change in the social sectors.”

Through this grassroots approach, rusini.org has grown to considerable success in Russia. At a time when ‘Foreign Agent’ laws restrict the ability of NGOs to invest and collaborate, Rusini (Russian Initiatives) offers an environment in which agencies are able to collaborate and cooperate with one another: “We’ve been trying to get businesses involved together. There are not many people who give money online, it is limited. So I decided to look at other resources and while I found that businesses want to help, they don’t have good platforms that are transparent and open. So I thought we could track and connect the small and medium enterprises to which we could give 1000 Euros and see results, and see benefits for the companies as well. Small amounts of money that provides significant investment and starts ventures between companies.”

While the take-off has been generally slow, there has been a noteworthy peak in some philanthropic areas, particularly those related to personal or sensitive problems. “Emotional stuff is very popular at the moment. Children and animals, for example. The sick, children, orphanages, hospitals and animals are getting money from various crowdfunding mechanisms. It is understandable because these are close to the people. But we do want an increase in grassroots projects...that are ecological, educational, long-term that won’t show impact straight away.”

However, there is little sentiment towards long-term planning at the moment in Russia. Firstly, crowdfunding is still new, so people remain reluctant to invest too much money at this stage. Secondly, NGOs remain a distant and disconnected segment of society, with little cohesion. Thirdly, the people want to see immediate results.

“It is a mentality question and it is difficult to break,” Taraskina admits.“People live in today. They don’t really plan ten years ahead. I think that is an important thing to change. But they don’t see the relevance of something ten years away.

“On top of that, NGOs and activists don’t present themselves properly or in an attractive way. They can’t communicate and they can’t target their audience and they don’t talk attractively about funds and they don’t connect and they don’t report back and they don’t try to engage with people; they just do their own thing.”

It is something that frustrates Taraskina as she believes there is a rise in interest for the field, but people are not being approached properly. NGOs need to communicate more effectively and efficiently so as to better facilitate each other’s work, instead of hindering progress. “I understand why NGOs compete with one another, because there are limited funds available. But there is a need for collaboration and for them to find the ways to address their target group together. Working together will be better for society, better for funds and events. And there is a need for collaboration that hasn’t been recognized yet.”

For Taraskina, the NGO sector will have realized its potential only when people are much more liberal and open in their views to donating small amounts of money and time in the name of grassroots projects. She hopes that, with the correct promotion and information, people will donate money in an autonomous fashion. “I want people to start thinking, 'this 10 euros can make this process work.' And maybe next time it is not money donated, but volunteering, maybe afterward it is 100 or 1000 euros, or leading a local project and I think crowdfunding can facilitate that.”

Additionally, Taraskina hopes that the experience of fellow Russians elsewhere in the world will foster a sense of unity behind such schemes. Taraskina believes that if more Russians feedback on their experiences, more people will become aware of their potential to change through small donations. “The Russian diaspora is important. I want people abroad to get involved to share their knowledge of what they gained abroad in their professional and personal lives and exchange that information. Hopefully if we can grow this, people would be more inclined to donate.”

Of course, the need for discussion is something that often inhibits groups. Whilst she admits that there can be skepticism and suspicion of new groups, Taraskina refutes the idea that there is no space to launch innovative social projects in Russia. “Particularly in Moscow, there are places for social entrepreneurship and co-working space. I think there is space. Instead, there is a need for new leadership about it and using it and organizing it in a clever way to lead and manage it, otherwise the space dies off.”     

Vladlena Taraskina was a speaker at Session 531, "Russian Civil Society Symposium: Building Bridges to the Future", sponsored by the Yeltsin Foundation. For more information and interviews with other participants, please visit the session page: www.salzburgglobal.org/go/531