Charity in Modern Sustainable Corporate Governance: the Ideology of Soft and Legal Regulation

Charity, traditional for Russian entrepreneurship, along with sponsorship and philanthropy, has historically been based on an ideology that goes into the dogma of Christian virtues, today it is being supplanted by the ideology of pr-strategies and, to a lesser extent, sustainable development.

In Russia, the legal basis and institutional environment for corporate and other charitable activities has been formed, the need for their improvement exists, but it is derived not so much from defects or insufficiency of legislation, but from the weakness of civil society, the fall in the authority of traditional values and the mercantile understanding of sustainable development goals as a pr- strategies.

Corporate charity, like charity in general, was and remains exclusively voluntary, not assuming the imperative of the state, which only suppresses attempts and practices of using charity to cover up illegal activities. In the corporate segment, the priority remains for the norms of soft regulation, voluntarily adopted by the business community.

Within the framework of corporate social responsibility concepts, philanthropy is included in sustainable corporate governance strategies, which are also largely regulated by universally recognized, but still soft norms.

To a greater extent depends on the penetration into the business environment of the ideology and goals of the social market economy, understanding the awareness of responsibility in the field of sustainable development. The possibilities of legal regulation in this case are in demand to ensure the free functioning of civil society institutions, as well as state incentives for charitable activities. In this sense, it is recommended to supplement the Decree of the President of Russia of November 9, 2022, by including charity in the list of traditional values (clause 5), to which it certainly historically, mentally and traditionally relates.