Slovakia

Introduction to Philanthropy Research in Slovakia

By Alžbeta Brozmanová Gregorová and Mária Murray Svidronová

Systematic research on philanthropy in Slovakia remains limited, although several academic, statistical and sector-based sources provide insight into giving. Researchers at Matej Bel University and the Institute for Public Affairs have examined individual giving, including donation levels, donor characteristics, motivations and barriers.

The Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic conducts annual sample surveys of non-market organisations and publishes results through the DATACUBE database. These statistics cover NGOs, professional chambers, political parties, religious organisations and other non-market entities. At the time of publication, however, the most recent available financial data were from 2020.

Another important source is the Map of Donations and Report on Philanthropy, produced for 2021 and 2022 in cooperation with the Tipsport Foundation and the Centre for Philanthropy. These reports bring together information on foundations, tax assignation, public collections and crowdfunding. Slovak researchers also participate in international research on civil society, philanthropy and volunteering.

A major limitation is that individuals and organisations are generally not required to report charitable donations through their tax returns. The important exception is Slovakia’s tax-assignation system. As a result, available information comes from a combination of representative surveys, nonprofit financial data, foundation reports and tax records rather than a single comprehensive source.

Overview of Giving in Slovakia

Giving by individuals

Two representative national surveys provide information on participation in individual giving, although neither allows a precise estimate of total individual giving in 2022.

A 2019 survey found that 55% of Slovak adults had donated money to a charitable or public-benefit cause during the previous twelve months. The survey excluded donations to family members, church collections and tax assignations. Twenty-three per cent of respondents donated up to €10, 22% donated between €11 and €50, and around 10% gave more than €50.

A second representative survey conducted in 2023 found that 51.9% of respondents had made a financial donation. The most common amount was between €11 and €50. Public and social-benefit causes were supported by 44.1% of donors, health by 39.6%, international aid, human rights and refugee-related causes by 28.3%, culture by 13.3%, environmental and animal-related causes by 12.1%, education and research by 6.8%, and sport and recreation by 4.5%.

The Statistical Office provides the best available monetary estimate through the income reported by nonprofit organisations. In 2020, Slovak nonprofits reported approximately €164.4 million in donations from private individuals.

Of this amount, approximately €102.9 million, or 62.6%, was received by youth organisations, interest groups and other membership-based organisations. Because these organisations operate across many different areas, the data cannot be reliably allocated to specific philanthropic causes.

Available figures show €20.56 million for public and social-benefit activities, €15.06 million for education and research, €5.21 million for religion, €0.59 million for health and €0.12 million for culture. Around €122.91 million falls into the broad residual category because of the statistical classification used.

Online giving is growing rapidly. In 2022, Slovakia’s five leading crowdfunding platforms — dakujeme.sk, ludialudom.sk, darujme.sk, startlab.sk and donio.sk — collected approximately €16.49 million.

The statistical figure should be interpreted cautiously. The underlying Statistical Office category includes not only donations from individuals but also several other forms of contributions, including tax assignation and membership contributions.

Bequest giving

Slovak law allows individuals to leave assets to nonprofit organisations or foundations through a will. Wills may be handwritten, prepared in another form in the presence of witnesses, or prepared and deposited through a notary.

Charitable bequests are not yet widespread, and Slovak law does not recognise “charitable bequests” as a separate statistical or legal category. This makes systematic measurement impossible.

The number of registered wills has nevertheless increased. The Slovak Chamber of Notaries recorded approximately 7,800 wills in the central registry in 2020, around 20% more than in 2010. There is no information on what proportion included gifts to charitable organisations.

No national monetary estimate of charitable bequests is therefore available.

Corporate giving

Corporate philanthropy in Slovakia is strongly connected to the country’s tax-assignation system. Companies may assign either 1% or 2% of their corporate income tax to eligible nonprofit organisations. The 2% rate is available when a company also makes a direct charitable donation worth at least 0.5% of its tax liability.

In 2022, 7,403 corporations used the tax-assignation system while also meeting the conditions associated with philanthropic giving. Based on approximately 66,217 companies with sufficient taxable income to have the potential to donate, this corresponds to around 11.2% of potentially eligible corporations.

The most recent Statistical Office monetary data are from 2020. Nonprofit organisations reported receiving approximately €109.31 million from financial and non-financial corporations.

Sport and recreation received approximately €30.54 million, or 27.9%, while domestic public and social-benefit activities received €26.2 million, or 24%. Education and research received €6.89 million and religion €4.85 million. Around €40.06 million, or 36.6%, could not be assigned more specifically.

These data provide the most comprehensive available estimate of corporate contributions to nonprofits, but they include tax assignation. They therefore should not be interpreted purely as voluntary private corporate philanthropy.

Foundations

Foundation giving is comparatively well documented. In 2022, 442 foundations — representing 87.2% of all registered foundations — submitted financial statements to Slovakia’s national accounting system. Of these, 255 foundations reported making philanthropic contributions.

Together, foundations distributed approximately €46.32 million in philanthropic support to other organisations in 2022. Giving was highly concentrated: Slovakia’s largest foundation, Habitat for Humanity, accounted for around 35% of the total, while the 20 largest foundations together distributed approximately €39.53 million, or about 85% of all foundation giving.

Because a small number of large foundations dominate the figures, the average distribution of €181,636 per foundation is not representative of the typical Slovak foundation.

No direct data are available on the distribution of private foundation grants across different causes. The available report therefore uses the distribution of tax-assigned funds as a proxy. On this basis, education and research account for approximately 32% of funding, health 22.9%, domestic public and social benefit 13.1%, sport and recreation 10.8%, environmental causes 9.1%, culture 8.7%, and international aid, human rights and refugees 1.3%. These percentages should be interpreted as an approximation rather than a direct measurement of private foundation giving.

Foundation financial data are derived from legally required financial statements, providing information on approximately 87% of registered foundations and offering one of the strongest sources of philanthropic data available in Slovakia.

Charity lotteries

Although Slovak legislation permits charity lotteries, none were operating during the period covered. The Office for Gambling Regulation issued no licences for charitable lotteries between 2019 and 2023.

Attempts have been made to establish a charitable lottery, but the estimated €10 million in start-up capital required has proved a major obstacle.

The state-owned lottery operator TIPOS does make direct corporate donations. Between 2018 and 2020, it donated approximately €8.1 million to 145 projects in sport, culture, education and health. These donations represented around 0.5% of its total revenue.

More broadly, gambling levies generated €212 million for the state budget in 2020. Between 2018 and 2020, €120.3 million of gambling revenues could be traced to public-benefit purposes, overwhelmingly sport. These are public allocations rather than giving by an independent charity lottery.

Consequently, charity-lottery giving itself was effectively €0.

Sources of Contributions in Slovakia

The publication reports figures of €164.42 million for individual contributions in 2020, €109.31 million for corporate contributions in 2020 and €46.32 million for foundation giving in 2022. It also presents €43.92 million associated with state-owned lottery funding in 2020, but this does not represent an operating charitable lottery.

These figures should not simply be added to create a national philanthropy total. The individual and corporate figures include tax assignation, which reallocates public tax revenue rather than representing purely private donations; the foundation figure refers to a different year; and the lottery figure concerns a state-owned operator rather than private charity-lottery philanthropy. The chapter therefore does not provide a reliable, comparable estimate of total private philanthropic giving in Slovakia.

Approximately half of Slovak adults donate to a public-benefit cause at least once a year: 55% did so in the 2019 survey and 51.9% in 2023. Corporate participation is considerably lower, at around 11% of potentially eligible corporations.

A distinctive feature of Slovak philanthropy is the importance of tax assignation. Although often described publicly as “donating your tax,” these resources represent a reallocation of public funds rather than private giving. Foundations redistributed approximately €65.4 million in assigned tax funds in 2022, of which corporate foundations accounted for €28.35 million.

The main challenge for research remains the absence of systematic, comparable and current data across all forms of philanthropy. The recurring Map of Donations and Report on Philanthropy represents an important step toward improving year-on-year understanding, but much of the wider evidence remains dependent on individual research projects and irregular datasets.

Source

Brozmanová Gregorová, A., & Murray Svidronová, M. (2026). Philanthropy in Slovakia. In B. Hoolwerf & J. Vamstad (Eds.), Philanthropy in Europe: Mapping Research and Data on Donations by Households, Bequests, Foundations, Corporations and Charity Lotteries (pp. 275–290). European Research Network on Philanthropy.

You can download the full publication here: Philanthropy in Europe.