Ukrainian Fund for Corporate Citizenship (UFCC) was launched as the next step in a successful two –year cooperation between the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine and Ukrainian Citizen Action Network (UCAN).  This partnership began in yearly 2004 by joint funding of the effective grant program.  Grants in the amount of 135 000 USD were awarded to Ukrainian charities, social enterprises and social services organizations.

UFCC’s goal is to provide Ukrainian and international businesses operating in Ukraine with the opportunity to make substantial financial donations to address priority needs of the communities and various vulnerable social groups while introducing and institutionalizing a valuable model of corporate citizenship that can be sustained and replicated within Ukraine.

UFCC will:

-  facilitate development of viable Ukrainian mechanisms for community  involvement  into providing support and quality services to communities and vulnerable groups;

-  determine priority areas  for funding and manage  direct corporate donation funds;

-  provide businesses with the opportunity to play a key role that corporations can and should play in big communities;

- develop a model for socially responsible businesses and provide business corporations with the opportunity to lead corporate citizenship movement and demonstrate how they can and should strengthen socially responsible business in Ukraine;

UFCC may help donors to determine priority areas for funding through ongoing monitoring of needs in the communities; define the priority areas for funding. At the moment UFCC is providing grants to civil society organizations for three types of projects:

·        Social Enterprise Grants - seek to promote the concept of social entrepreneurship, introducing this mechanism by which businesses fully owned and operated within a non-profit organization can be used to generate funds to support the organization’s core activities.

·        Social Needs - projects suggesting new, practical, innovative, and realistic mechanisms for solving concrete social problems faced by a community as a whole or by a specific vulnerable group.  The projects shall not just provide an immediate relief, but show the potential to create social change to sustain improved conditions of the target group and make a lasting contribution to the development of new mechanisms and partnerships for addressing social needs in Ukraine.

·        Community Philanthropy - primarily model projects which encourage the involvement of community and business leaders in meeting community needs through community resources. These would include community foundations and other local charities that are doing innovative fundraising and include sophisticated awareness campaigns.