On December 8 the VI All-Russian civil forum "Dialogue. Solidarity. Responsibility" took place in Moscow.

It has become the largest Forum for the 6 years of its existence. More than 2080 participants and guests from 75 regions of Russia took part in it. Half of them came to the Forum for the first time. One third of all participants were young people under the age of 35. The event was covered by 116 media representatives and supported by more than 100 organizers and volunteers. The program included nearly 300 speakers and 70 events on the most acute topics for civil society. 

 The main themes were the level of happiness in Russia and the tools for increasing happiness by involving in this process government, business sector, non-profit organizations and concerned citizens. 

In the end of the Forum day the participants voted for the Statement which contained a proposal to change the criteria for evaluating decisions. “The life of people is determined not only by the volume of the allocated and assimilated funds. The most important criteria for the government and society should be the social capital, the quality of life and the level of happiness in Russia”, - the document says.

You can find the full text of the Statement here.

The Forum was opened by a discussion about civil responsibility “Why are we doing this? #Potomuchtoludi . The participants talked about how civil and charitable activities affect personal feelings of happiness and why it is important to talk about this today. The speakers of the discussion were the heroes of the joint social-media project of the All-Russia civil forum and Committee for civil initiatives #Potomuchtoludi. Among them there were: Alexey Kudrin, Chairman of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation, member of the All-Russia civil forum Organizing Committee; Vladimir Smirnov, philanthropist, founder of the private charitable foundation “Obraz Zhizni”, the Foundation for the Support of young Artists and the founder of the Center “Blagosfera”; Alexander Tsypkin, writer, trustee of the Butterfly children Charitable Foundation and trustee of the Cancer Prevention Foundation;  Anastasia Tatulova, founder of the Anderson cafe chain. The discussion was moderated by Andrey Sharonov, President of the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo, trustee of the Foundation “Bureau of good deeds”.

You can watch the video of the discussion here.

Before the discussion the research organization Levada Centre presented the results of its survey made in October 2018 on the topic of “Happiness: personal and universal in the minds of the civil society’. 

The goal of the survey was to understand what makes people happy, how the perception of the situation in the country affects the feeling of happiness and how civil and charitable activities affect the personal feeling of happiness. Some of the questions on the questionnaire are comparable with the data from the all-Russia surveys of the Levada Centre, which allowed to carry out a comparative analysis and determine the similarities and differences in the views of the population in general and the All-Russia civil forum community.

You can find the results of the survey here.

One of the key discussions of the Forum was the discussion “Business – Society – Power: old Problems, old expectations”, which was attended by Alexey Kudrin, Chairman of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation, member of the All-Russia civil forum Organizing Committee; Anatoly Chubais, Chairman of the Executive Board of RUSNANO Management Company LLC; Andrey Klepach, Chairman of the joint expert council of the competition for the provision of presidential grants for the development of civil society; Oleg Fomichev, Chief Strategy Officer, “Renova-Holding Rus” LLC; Ilya Chukalin, General Director of the Presidential Grants Foundation; Mikhail Voronin, president of the business community “Atlantes”.

You can watch the video of the discussion here. 

In recent years we have seen many examples of self-organizing society, when non-occupied people successfully replaced the state: campaigns of municipal elections in defense of free Internet, independent media - we can recall many examples when people acted without any help of the state but made benefits for the whole country. What unites all these stories and their organizers, how to ensure that they become not the exception but the rule? These questions were discussed by the participants in the discussion “With a human face: What leaders does the Russian society need?” moderated by Dmitry Gudkov, the leader of the “Party of Changes”.

You can watch the video of the discussion here.

The officials of different levels showed a great interest in the All-Russia civil forum. Throughout the day, the “Power - Society” dialogues took place. They were attended by Veronika Skvortsova, Minister of Health of the Russian Federation; Denis Novak, Deputy Minister of Justice of the Russian Federation; Andreyi Klishas, ​​Chairman of the Council of Federation Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building; Ilya Chukalin, General Director of the Presidential Grants Foundation; Artem Shadrin, Director of the Department  for Strategic Development and Innovations, Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation; Konstantin Noskov, Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Communications; Alexey Didenko, State Duma Deputy, Chairman of the committee for federal structure and local government issues.

You can watch the video of the discussion with Ilya Chukalin and Artem Shadrin here.

You can watch the video of the discussion with Denis Novak and Andrey Klishas here. 

The Forum was concluded by the discussion “Transformational Charity: When does it win?” The participants talked about the successful cases of transformational philanthropy in Russia today, what transformation criteria can be distinguished and what approaches to implementing philanthropic activities allow us to predict that it will help to launch transformational processes in solving selected social problems. What role can big donators play in this process, and what role can be played by professional teams of specialists from the non-profit sector?

 You can watch the video of the discussion here. 

All the discussions of the All-Russia civil forum day were recorded and you can find them on our website or YouTube channel.  Stay tuned for updates.

In the course of numerous events at the All-Russia civil forum-2018 experts and participants agreed and presented a number of materials.

The final materials of the Forum can be found here.