Annual Letter on Philanthropy

KEY HIGHLIGHTS

> In the 6th year of the Silver Line activity, 1,979 pairs of befrienders communicated weekly, and since the beginning of the Silver Line in 2016, more than 7,000 Lithuanian residents have already discovered the new source of befrieding joy in life (5,518 elderly people and 1,564 volunteers) ;

> all together they have enjoyed more than 14,000 storytelling hours;

> every month our call center received an average of 1,083 calls by phone 8 800 800 20; we responded to 955 of them immediately by providing the caller with the desired emotional support or informational assistance. We recall all missed calls;

> in September, we've reached the 3rd million minutes of conversation duration - it took us 13 months. At the end of 2022, the total number of minutes spoken since the beginning of the activity reached 3,227,287 or almost 53,800 hours;

> at the end of the year, we had 521 active volunteers chatting regularly with elderly people every week; in total, more than 1,564 people of good will have volunteered in the Silver Line since its inception;

> we completed the implementation of a new CRM with integrated telephony system; although the project took us more than a year we now are in line with global best practice, which had a significant positive impact on the efficiency of work and data management of the Silver Line call center;

> at the Centre of Registers we've registered the new version of the Foundation's statutes and started forming the Endowment capital to further strengthen our financials, have more independence on reliance of public grants to allow ourselves to grow even faster.

THE SILVER LINE

In 2022, 1,979 pairs of befriender (+24% compared to 2021) talked as many as 38,434 times (-1% compared to 2021), including 26,973 befriending conversations (+3% compared to 2021) and 11,461 emotional support and informational assistance calls on the 800 line (-10% compared to 2021). All these conversations lasted 845,914 minutes or more than 14,000 hours (-10% compared to 2021), and since the start of activity in June 2016, the duration of conversations is approaching 54,000 hours. This just reaffirms the importance of human relationship and communication in each of our lives.

Last year, almost 600 new elderly people discovered the Silver Line, and at the end of the year we had more than 5,500 of them (+12% compared to 2021).

LONELINESS KILLS - CONVERSATIONS HEAL

The number of suicides in Lithuania is decreasing every year (it decreased by 37% during the period 2015-2021), but we still remain one of the most suicidal nations in Europe. In 2021, 565 people committed suicide in Lithuania, or 20.1 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

The saddest picture is still among the elderly. In 2021, as many as 248 people aged 60 and older, or as much as 44% of all those who committed suicide, left the world voluntarily. Accordingly, these figures reached 248 (41%) in 2020, 242 (37%) in 2019, 266 (39%) in 2018, and 253 (34%) in 2017.

Despite the obviously improving situation for the entire population of Lithuania, the trends among the elderly are certainly not encouraging; it is influenced by many reasons. As the old people themselves tell us, they feel disappointed because of the challenges that arise in their old age, which are very difficult to cope with on their own, and the psychological violence they experience in society, which often manifests itself in disrespect, intolerance, impatience, inattention, even hypocrisy. If physical ailments attack additionally, a life partner leaves, or the circle of loved ones becomes extremely narrow over the years, it becomes difficult to survive all this alone.

In the Silver Line we often encounter elderly people with suicidal thoughts. A person who is going through a suicidal crisis needs to get emotional support immediately - it is very important to have someone to lean on in that difficult hour. This "disease" is not treatable with drugs. Only respect and sincere attention.

"A single life is not a life. Communicating in the Silver Line I recover, straighten up, I don't get depressed, I sleep better," - Pranciška, 80 years old befriender.

VOLUNTEERING

During the year, we received 153 new volunteer applications, signed volunteering contracts with 113 of them. The total number of active volunteers reached 521: 449 communicate regularly with elderly people (37 even with several), others are studying, preparing or waiting for their befrienders.

In 2022, 118 people stopped their volunteering in the Silver Line, mainly due to personal reasons (growing a family, changing jobs, going to live abroad, due to lack of time, losses experienced, other emotional difficulties), as well as due to our initiative for non-fulfillment of obligations.

Almost 40% all volunteers were 50 years of age or older; this share increased by 5 pp during the year. We consciously seek to "age" our volunteers by participating in various projects inviting older people in volunteering, not only by providing these people with additional opportunities for self-realization, but also by providing the Silver Line target audience with more emotional comfort and confidence.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

In the annual "Lietuvos galia" (the Power of Lithuania) awards of civic initiatives by President G. Nausėda, the Silver Line was awarded in the "Fair Lithuania" category.

The goal of the "Lietuvos galia" initiative is to activate public involvement in the life of the state and strengthen civic power. It is a platform for volunteers, communities, active citizens and others to present their activities, find like-minded people and receive support. By showing good examples, innovative solutions, and success stories, the initiative aims to increase their awareness and dissemination, inspire others to take action and contribute to the development of their state.

This year, "Lietuvos galia" gathered more than 200 initiatives registered both in Lithuania and in other countries.

"The civil power that strengthens Lithuania was most clearly revealed at the time when we had to overcome one crisis after another. Individuals, communities, non-governmental organizations helped mitigate the negative impact of the pandemic and illegal migration. Our focus on providing aid to Ukraine, which has become a victim of Russian military aggression, has become a real triumph of civic power," - said President G. Nausėda.

FINANCING

In 2022, we've raised a total of EUR 675,981 in donations, or 34% more than in 2021. 15% of it was donated by individuals (+92% vs 2021), 27% – by companies and organizations (+132% vs 2021), 58% – state and municipality grants (+4 % vs 2021). This is a record amount of donations we have raised in a year. Again.

Individuals donated a total of 713 times: the most popular way of donating was one-offs and/or recurring donations on the Silver Line website, as well as direct transfers to the Fund's bank account, or through the aukok.lt donation platform, and by allocating 1.2% part of the personal income tax paid.

Legal entities donated a total of 69 times, the average amount of donation was EUR 2,457. The top 5 donators contributed 60% of all business support: Vilniaus Sigma, AB donated EUR 50,000, MM Investicijos, UAB - EUR 30,000, American Chamber of Commerce in Lithuania - EUR 15,000, Tesonet Global - EUR 10,000, Gjensidige Lietuva - EUR 7,000.

We are especially pleased with recurring donations, albeit small. After all, the elderly want to communicate every day. Like eat or breath. 26% of all donators provided their support more than once in 2022 (since the beginning of the Foundation's activity this measure reaches 16%).

In 2022, public sector grants totalled EUR 389,980. This amount consists of competitive and programmatic funding provided by 2 municipalities (8%), support from the Active Citizens Fund (10%), part of the allocations of local development strategy implementation measures in Kėdainiai and Marijampolė funded by European Union Structural Funds (2%) and the direct grants to support emotional wellbeing of the elderly by the Ministry of Social Security and Labor (80%).

ENDOWMENT CAPITAL

Endowment capital of the charity foundation is the donated monetary capital and/or other assets with a single purpose of investing and only income from investments is used to finance the activities of the Foundation or projects it runs to benefit the society as provided in the Foundation's statutes. This means that the Foundation does not directly use these assets entrusted to it to finance operational costs, but invests them according to a defined investment strategy and finances the ongoing social projects [fully or partially] from the investment returns. In this way, the donators' capital "works" for an indefinite period of time and enables the Foundation to create a long-term and sustainable source of financing for even bigger and bolder impact.

In 2022 February 8, the Center of Registers registered the new version of the Foundation's statutes and we officially started the formation of Endowment capital. We set ourselves the goal to raise an initial capital of at least EUR 500,000 and create an alternative source of funding for the Foundation's activities and the Silver Line.

At the end of the year, we already had EUR 252,579 in the Endowment capital account: EUR 191,500 were donated by legal entities and EUR 61,079 - by individuals.

In 2022, we completed the two-year testing of the Endowment capital investment strategy. During the last really difficult 24 months, the world was shaken by a lot of events: Russia started a was against Ukraine, an energy crisis broke out in Europe, the markets were frightened by record inflation together with the extremely aggressive monetary policy of central banks to tackle this inflation, and there was growing concern about economic recession. However, we managed to achieve 21% average annual investment return - it allows us to feel comfortable about the chosen investment strategy as the the world stock index was left behind by 40 pp.

So for now we want to focus all our efforts on raising capital and starting managing our Endowment capital in 2023 for the further development of the Silver Line and spreading its impact as wide as possible.

Thank you each and everyone who contributed to this. Let's continue creating an age-friendly Lithuania together!