Avrora Multimarket: “CSR is about Сaring in all of Our Business Activities”

With over 1,570 stores in Ukraine, more than 20 stores in Romania, and 70% of its products sourced from Ukrainian suppliers, Avrora Multimarket continues to scale up while developing locally: supporting domestic producers, creating jobs in regions across Ukraine, and contributing to local community budgets.

The company does not have its own charitable foundation but has found a format for the most effective cooperation with other foundations and organizations: not only by initiating and participating in social projects, but also by supporting operational activities.

Alyona Zhyhura, Head of CSR, shares how CSR works at Avrora, which mechanisms are most effective in retail, and how caring has become a common thread in the company’s activities, both internally and externally.

The Culture of Caring as the Foundation of Business

A word that describes us most is “caring.” It is the foundation of all our work. When the company was founded, its co-owners defined one of our values as “Give freely,” and we continue to move forward based on this principle.

This is a culture of caring, both for our internal clients and employees, as well as for our customers and all other stakeholders with whom we interact. This is the foundation of our corporate social responsibility.

“We’re Part of Our HR”: How Is CSR Structured in the Company?

Until 2020, we did not have a CSR department. We helped and participated in various initiatives, but it was only with the onset of COVID-19 that this activity became systemic.

Structurally, the CSR department is part of the Human Capital department. This is not a standard setup. Our department interacts with all departments in the company, from PR and marketing to logistics and retail. There is not a single department with which we do not work. With some of them, collaboration is more systemic — with marketing, for example, because we are jointly involved in various campaigns and initiatives. This also includes work with the GR department, as we often interact with government authorities.

The department currently has 12 employees. While there are projects that only we are involved in, such as sports, rehabilitation, and employee support, when it comes to charitable assistance, a lot of people join. These include sales staff, accountants, and lawyers, if necessary. Therefore, CSR is about coordinating actions.

GR and Cooperation with the State

GR and PR are one structural unit. There is a specific list of projects (such as “Made in Ukraine”) involving direct interaction with the government and businesses.

These can be different stories, including community assistance. After the attack on the Institute of Communication in Poltava, we actively interacted with communities, authorities, and hospitals for several weeks. We worked together to determine what help was needed and what we could provide. At that time, the priority was to treat the injured soldiers and support the school, as it had a large educational and technical base that was simply destroyed.

Cooperation between authorities and business must be open and transparent. We decided that we needed someone to lead this initiative and become its ambassador. This person is responsible for negotiations and communication with authorities.

CSR Priority Areas

All our initiatives are usually determined by interaction with our stakeholders forming requests. Sometimes, we see what is important for our employees today and strengthen this area during a particular month or quarter.

In a country with an ongoing aggressive war, it is very difficult to assess. We have plans and a strategy, but sometimes our neighbor sets us tasks that we have to prioritize. Many of our stores are located in frontline regions. We do not set distinct goals and KPIs for specific projects — our task is to be as useful as possible to the security and defense forces and to support our colleagues as much as possible. After all, the third year of the full-scale war takes its toll on the mental level. Therefore, we focus on the requests and certain forecasts that we see.

The main charity areas for us today are:

1. Support for the security and defense forces.
2. Support for veterans (rehabilitation or rehabilitation through sports).
3. Support for local suppliers and manufacturers.

Caring for Employees and Veterans Should Be an Omnipresent Norm

The conditions we create for our employees are the foundation. We are currently strategically focused on several projects:

• An inclusivity project. We understand that there are currently 3 million people with disabilities, and the number will only increase each year. Changes driven by the situation in the country should be an omnipresent norm. Inclusivity is about accessibility at retail outlets, in our offices, and at distribution centers.
•  Veteran policy should also be compulsory for every company. Veterans will return and with them we will work. The least we can do is be ready to welcome them properly and prepare our teams in advance. While veterans are ready to return in any case, teams sometimes do not know how to behave.

Today, 70 veterans work at our company. We have developed a light adaptation program because most of them do not want to talk about being veterans and do not need exclusive conditions. However, we offer assistance with medical treatment, psychological support, retraining — if necessary and desired, ongoing support, and sports events.

Together with Diya.Business | Poltava, we initiated the Trajectory grant program aimed at attracting veterans to start or develop their own businesses. This national online program involved psychological support, mentoring, and training. It received 450 applications from all over Ukraine, with 50 participants getting a grant of UAH 100,000 to strengthen their current business or start a new one.

We also pay attention to sports. The initiative both involves our own employees and is promoted externally.

Corporate Volunteering

We often involve our team in corporate volunteering. This is what happened to corporate donations two years ago, when one of our employees suggested doing that systematically and by visiting offices. The number of donors in the company has increased by 302% since 2022, with over 500 regular donors now and our employees developing the area and volunteering.

In addition, we practice “plogging”: We pick up trash in riverside areas and parks while jogging. The idea came from abroad, but we adapted it to Poltava and continue to involve the community and carry out certain activities.

Win-Win Cooperation with Charitable Foundations

The format of interaction with public organizations and charitable foundations suits us better than forming our own foundation. We have a list of partnerships with public organizations, with Come Back Alive, Zemliachky NGO, and United24 among them, that we have been working with for several years, and we are very happy about that.

In addition to donations and joint projects, we provide operational support to foundations and organizations. As we pay salaries to their employees and rent premises for them, foundations can focus on how to be effective in their work rather than where to get donations to cover the former. This type of support is currently of utmost importance to ensure that civic society organizations and foundations can work effectively.

Usually, a charitable organization sees the results of our work in advance and approaches us with a proposal to do something together. Some of them come to us with a request to raise a certain amount of money to provide a particular unit with protective equipment or tactical medical training for military personnel. Sometimes, we support cool initiatives or developing foundations ourselves: We can recommend something, help, guide, or strengthen them.

If a charitable organization has a specific goal and understands what it wants to achieve and what resources it needs to do so, if it has expertise and certain responsibility and ethical principles, we are ready to consider it as our partner. We analyze the foundation’s previous activities. When we see that it does have a certain social impact, that it provides ongoing support in a specific area, and that our cooperation will have a long-term impact, we consider cooperation.

We work well with charitable foundations, and our initiatives are effective, since both sides are interested. A strong team is very important to us, as are PR and marketing, because these are resources. Our primary goal is for the buyer to receive a great product at an affordable price. When an organization comes not just to ask for something or for help but with an idea of how to work together, that is true cooperation.

Why Should Well-Known Businesses Talk about Their Charitable Activities?

For us, publicity has always been secondary, and sometimes, it did not matter at all. We focus on what we can do and what positive impact we can make.

We usually cover all the events involving our customers to report back and thank them for their involvement and contribution. But due to publicity, we get interesting results that we have not noticed before. The charitable foundations and civic society organizations we work with ask us to support them informationally, for if Avrora gets involved in a project and supports it, other businesses will follow suit.

Throughout all the activities we have carried out, the funds have always reached their intended recipients and the assistance has been provided. This is a sign of quality demonstrating that the foundation really takes its stakeholders seriously and we, in turn, guarantee that it is transparent and follows ethical principles.

The Most Effective Retail Mechanisms

Promotional products work best for us as a retailer. This promotional format includes a list of products and a certain amount of money from their sales donated to charity.

The mechanics should be very simple so that people can understand what is happening in the shortest time possible and make their contribution by purchasing a product. Everything should be plain to get a result.

We have our own brand, thanks to which we collaborate with manufacturers and launch our own product lines. When we receive a request or decide to participate in a project with a particular civic society organization or charitable foundation, we define the initiative goals and objectives we want to achieve. We also select a specific category of goods and identify partnerships. We are very lucky with our suppliers because they are very open and always participate in charitable initiatives, feeling the importance of their contribution.

Case 1: “FUN BOX for children” in collaboration with the Children of Heroes charitable foundation

• What it is: From June 1 to mid-July, we sold colorful fun boxes with children’s goods for girls and boys and donated the proceeds from their sales. We determined what works best and where buyers are most attracted. We wanted children to be interested in these things and help other children.
• Amount raised: UAH 3 million. We used the funds to prepare 1,512 children who lost their parents in the war for school.

Case 2: Limited collection of toy military vehicles in partnership with KIDDISVIT and United24.

• What it is: Collectible models of TechnoK toy cars with Ukrainian Armed Forces symbols were sold online, with 10% of the proceeds donated to Ukraine’s reconstruction.
• Amount raised: UAH 1.6 million, which was donated to rebuild one of the destroyed Ukrainian schools.

Case 3: Charitable TM “Mylanka” in partnership with the Volunteering and Help Center.

• What: 100% of the profits from the sale of paper towels and other household goods of the “Mylanka” brand are donated to charity depending on current needs.
• Result: We have purchased and delivered the necessary medicines worth over UAH 820,000 to a base hospital in Donetsk Region and later, medical equipment for the first aid station of one of the brigades.

Radio Avrora: How Did We Come Up with the Idea of Supporting Young Ukrainian Performers?

This is one of the cultural areas we support while addressing several issues.

On the one hand, this is a social contribution. It is important for us to support not only Ukrainian suppliers, but also culture. After all, in wartime, it is very difficult for a young artist to do anything without funding.

On the other hand, our youth spends a lot of time in our stores, and what they listen to also matters. They wanted more diversity in music in general.

Since the radio station was launched and every artist was given an opportunity to apply for airplay, even the mood and atmosphere in the stores have changed. Customers dance while they shop, and it is a different feeling compared to the one a few years ago when we played instrumental music or a mix of different genres. That is how the match came about.

Do the Company’s Social Initiatives Influence Buyers’ Choices and the Eemployer’s Brand?

We cannot say that all our buyers come to us because we are a socially responsible company. But a large share of our long-term employees appreciate our contribution with regard to them and external environment, highly recommend us, and return to us themselves.

Social initiatives have a 100% impact on the employer brand. For example, when I am now recruiting people for my team, candidates say during interviews that they follow the initiatives taking place in the company — or they give preference to our offer over others.

After demobilization, we continue to support all our military personnel from Avrora. Throughout their service, we also help them or their family members. And when the question arises of whether to return to us or not, most of them do.

That is why we have developed this formula of caring and gratitude toward our employees.