In the 22nd round of the “Benefactor of the Year” Competition, the title was awarded in the following categories:

• Local Development: ZAKŁAD FOTOGRAFICZNY U JARKA – JAROSŁAW DEKA for many-year, consistent cooperation with NGOs and especially for involvement in implementation of numerous projects benefitting the local community of Żywiec, including initiating and financing redecoration of the children’s hospital, and for assistance in creating a modern sensory room at the  special education center.
• Corporate Foundation: PKO BANK POLSKI FOUNDATION for activities aimed at increasing automotive mobility of the disabled, including support in financing driving courses and special adaptation of cars, as well as in establishing the Center for the Disabled Automotive Mobility.
• Education – Small and Medium Sized Company: MAGOVOX SP. Z O.O., for involvement in creating the Strengthened program offering consulting and training services to women and girls in Poland, and for financial and substantive support in its implementation.
• Education – Large Company: BUDIMEX S.A., for financing the construction and securing the infrastructure for Tawny Owl Forest Kindergarten, as well as for training of its staff.
• Ecology – Small and Medium Sized Company: ETTEPLAN POLAND SP. Z O.O., for enhancing the potential of civil nature monitoring and ecological education through the Bumblebee Detector mobile application that enabled receiving 544 bumblebee records informing about 21 bumblebee species, of which six are very rare and endangered.
• Social aid – Small and Medium Sized Company: KWADRAT MULTIMEDIA S.C. KATARZYNA I PAWEŁ PUZOŃ, for supporting activities benefitting children with cancer, which included repeated and free-of-charge marketing support, creation of unique calendars sale proceeds of which go to the Foundation’s account, and support in the 1% of Tax campaign.
• Social aid – Large Company: JERONIMO MARTINS POLSKA S.A., for systemic work against malnutrition and food waste, including support for 5 303 seniors under the Everyday Shopping program by offering them pre-paid cards with which they can pay for basic products, and for developing the process of transferring the  food with short shell life to the needy under the Caritas Pantry program.
• Health Care – Small and Medium sized Company: UCB PHARMA SP. Z O.O., for supporting people with epilepsy, including substantive and financial contribution in creating the Innovative Training Phantom Presenting an Epilepsy Seizure, cooperation in obtaining access to the latest research results and supporting organization of workshops on first aid for people with epilepsy.
• Health Care – Large Company: AUCHAN POLSKA SP. Z O.O., for activities aimed at increasing the number of bone marrow donors and bone marrow donation awareness  among 50,000 customers and 2,000 staff, resulting in registration of almost 9,000 potential bone marrow donors and raising almost PLN 5,000 for examining them.
• Sports – Small and Medium sized Company: LIGIHALOWE.PL S.C. A. ŚWIERZEWSKI, B. GENDERA, for offering free-of-charge equipment for sports events, organization of charity collections during the sports events held by the company and advertising the association’s activities which last year resulted in transferring of almost PLN 25,000 for the charges of the organization.
• Sports – Large Company: POWSZECHNY ZAKŁAD UBEZPIECZEŃ NA ŻYCIE S.A., for supporting sports charities, including financing the annual mountain running aimed at raising money for curing children with cancer, as well as financial and organizational support for sports events and all-year’s training  for the disabled.

The Competition Committee awarded also the following honorary mentions:

• Education – an honorary mention: SAP POLSKA, for popularizing young people’s  digital skills and supporting initiatives aimed at learning how to code.
• Social Aid – an honorary mention: NESTLE PURINA, for substantive and financial support for Adopciaki.pl program aimed at responsible adoption of animals from a shelter.
• Health care – an honorary mention: NATIONALE-NEDERLANDEN TOWARZYSTWO UBEZPIECZEŃ NA ŻYCIE, for supporting Movember educational campaign to increase awareness of cancers affecting men as a result of which over 2,000 men were examined in 2018.

For 22 years, the Competition has been awarding socially responsible companies. The “Benefactor of the Year” title became an inspiration for numerous local and regional  competitions carried out by both NGOs and local public administration. It popularizes and collects good practices of large corporations (which have the biggest experience in CSR and CCI), and charity actions of small and medium sized companies. The Competition does not make a distinction between better and worse companies, it only shows that good is good regardless of a company’s size or amounts donated to charity.

The Competition is organized by the Academy for the Development of Philanthropy in Poland. The Polish-American Freedom Foundation, supporting the competition since 2002, was the patron of the “Local Involvement” category that promotes social activities of firms which contribute to transformation of local communities  in cooperation with Act Locally Centers. The competition legal supervisor was EY.

The Competition is supported by: the Polish Donors Forum, Lewiatan Polish Confederation of Private Employers, Business Centre Club, the Responsible Business Forum, Employers of Poland, and United Nations Global Compact Poland.

The performance by Piotr Polek added splendor to the this-year’s Gala.