Press Releases

Budapest, June 28, 2004 16:45

The Nonprofit Information and Training Centre (NIOK) has honored Matáv with the Corporate Donor of the Year 2003 award. The foundation awards this prize to businesses pursuing outstanding sponsorship and donation activities. It has been awarded every year since 1995 and uniquely, Matáv’s activities have deserved this recognition of high moral value for the second time. It was received by Matáv communication director Bálint Nagy.

NIOK awards this prize to businesses and private persons for their outstanding corporate contribution, charitable and donation activities. Anyone could submit a nomination for the invitation made during the year and the Board of Trustees of NIOK judged the entries. "Besides its direct monetary donation of 110 million HUF last year, Matáv has made an exemplary contribution to the development of the civil sector with free or supported services which help make the interested parties and the donors aware of the activities of the civil initiatives," is how the Board of Trustees explained the decision.

In addition to taking a share commensurate with its economic role in sponsoring Hungarian cultural life, over the past ten years Matáv has become one of the most significant donor of the civil sector. Direct support provided by the Matáv Group amounted to 0.46 per cent of its annual revenue. In fact, it is Matáv that has introduced in Hungary the term "corporate contributions and sponsorship". The term, covering the areas of support, donation and sponsorship has become accepted and widely used in professional and civil circles alike.

"It is a great pleasure for us that, uniquely in the history of NIOK, Matáv has been awarded this significant honor for a second time. This also shows that for ten years now we have been successfully pursuing our corporate contributions and sponsorship policy, which enables us to offer support to initiatives aimed at solving the most acute social and health problems. We are convinced that making donations and a social contribution are at least as much in the fundamental interest of a profit-oriented company, as of the civil society, because a service provider can only operate successfully in the long term in a healthy environment. We are trying to adapt to the needs of society and take the initiative in assisting with the solution of problems and filling such gaps which concern all of us," said Bálint Nagy, director of communication, on accepting the award.

Since early this year Matáv's diverse donation activities have been integrated in an umbrella program called "Matáv Gives Back". This program comprises all those activities whose aim is to make the social contribution and donation activities more organized and transparent for both the donors and the recipients. The program rests on four pillars:

- "really important donations" - direct monetary donations
- "charitable numbers" - services provided free of charge for the purpose of the collection of residential donations
- "really important conversations" - discount telephone services like the Civil Tariff Package, 30% discount provided to the civil sphere and the telephone helpline services
- "the Matáv employee adds" - individual donations of the employees, voluntary work.

Children's health and social problems, sport activities of the disadvantaged and - last but not least, being a telecommunications company - people with communication problems due to a physical disability, are key target areas of Matáv's donation activity.

The decisions on awarding the support are taken by the Board of Trustees of the "Matáv Gives Back" program, and are regularly published in the Newsletter and on the company internet site www.matav.hu .