OKD Foundation Strategy

The OKD Foundation Program is established on four basic pillars – its support goes to the areas of health, cultural life and education, regional and environment development and projects aimed at obtaining grants from the European Union. The Managing Board of the OKD Foundation conducts grant procedures for each of the OKD Foundation Program pillars separately, usually once a year.

To administer any grant procedure, the OKD Foundation uses the services of expert entities with required experience in philanthropic project management and a good reputation. More specifically, such entities comprise the Brno-based “Partnership Foundation”, and the Ostrava-based “Community Development Institute”.

The OKD Foundation directs a majority of the funds (approx. 80 %) to projects resulting in an improved quality of life in the Moravian-Silesian Region, but does not however disregard the option of supporting nationwide projects or cross-border cooperation projects (approx. 20 %). In selecting any winning project, the key criterion is necesity and quality. To measure the benefits of individual projects, the OKD Foundation applies the internationally recognized LBG methodology, (known in the Czech Republic as the “Methodology of the Standard Responsible Company”).

In accordance with the OKD Foundation Statutes, there are also some new programs and activities, launched in the OKD Foundation in 2009.

The important activities of the OKD Foundation include the Emergency Support Program. It is not a usual grant program, but a tool for quickly providing funds to needy people affected by unforeseeable events or natural disasters. Since this Emergency Support Program was kicked off, there have been few situations where the OKD Foundation has had to decide to respond: during the flooding in 2009 and 2010, and in response to the mining accident in Handlová, Slovakia.