The development and encouragement of volunteering is the fundamental goal of the 'Helping is Easy' programme. It has been operating since 2013 and involves active residents within the regions where RUSAL is present as well as Company employees in voluntary and community activities, to support innovative charitable solutions, and to create a common communication space for volunteers.
To have a maximum effect, the Centre for Social Welfare for Local Communities not only supports volunteers who have already joined the programme, but also works to attract new volunteers. To this end, it develops programmes and technologies that allows residents to easily engage in volunteer activities. Today, there are several such successful projects: the 'Helping is Easy' service, the annual New Year charity marathon 'Believe in Miracles, Create Miracles!', the charity festival 'Energy of Our Hearts', the environmental marathon 'Yenisei Day', and the grant contests 'Helping is Easy' and 'Green Wave'.
Twice a year, as part of the 'Helping is Easy' programme, a grant contest is held, in which volunteers get the opportunity to implement projects aimed at helping socially vulnerable people by developing pro bono volunteering, creating volunteer communities, organising and holding educational events for them. RUSAL provides grants of up to RUB 50 thousand to winners of the contest for implementing successful initiatives to help socially vulnerable people byconducting patronage work, organising communication and training events for the volunteers. The main feature and difference of the contest is that its participants do not need to be organisations with legal status; they can simply be informal associations of local residents and initiative groups that have offered original volunteering ideas.