Enemies of Change: How Grant-Eaters Block the Development of Civil Society or Why Grants Did Not Save Ukraine from Corruption?

You may consider me anyone you like, but the fruits of the 2014 revolution were taken by scoundrels. This is exactly what the people unsuccessfully voted against in 2019. But enough lyricism—let's return to the harsh prose of life and address the problem highlighted by the recent agenda regarding the freezing of grant funding for parasites that openly harm Ukraine and hinder its development.

I will not edit the text—it remains as it was in the 2019 note:

The development of the economy, digital infrastructure, democracy, civil society, and media are interconnected, and in principle, they cannot be separated or isolated. These processes are closely intertwined, and any detachment of one from the others does not contribute to further progress, but rather introduces discord, ultimately making the system unstable.

However, the problem of uneven development between these areas is neither surprising nor unnatural. On the contrary, it is much more organic and justified by the laws of evolution. The real problem, which cannot be ignored, is the issue of pressure, influence, and stimulation of societal development and its institutions.

It turns out that without awareness of necessity, without understanding the problem, and without a desire to solve it, all stimulation processes are doomed to failure. Society cannot develop artificially, accept imposed protocols and truths, or learn lessons from unconscious, free, or problem-free solutions. Only by consciously overcoming natural developmental challenges can society grow.

In unnatural, greenhouse conditions, society only loses its will and drive for growth and eventually begins to degrade, imitating movement, growth, and development. You can observe examples of such degradation in Ukraine today. Attempts to change the country through donors, sponsors, and grantors have resulted in development, reforms, and changes taking on the form of imitation, while natural growth and grassroots attempts to make a difference have been stifled by financially stronger players.

The financial injection has developed cancerous tumors that, instead of fostering growth, contribute to society's degradation and suffocate its living, natural, and organic attempts to grow.

The best example: media

The level of media development in a country is a direct indicator of how democratic that country is and how much this democracy differs from its imitation. In Ukraine today, based on media ownership analysis, we can confidently say that our democracy is imitative, and the actual form of governance can be called oligarchic despotism.

How and where is this manifested?

• 70% of media outlets are owned by so-called commercial but, in fact, oligarchic structures;

• 20% are funded by grants and donor money;

• 5% are supposedly state-owned but are actually controlled by whichever oligarchs are in power at the moment;

• 5% have unclear status.

Due to this structure, the overall media landscape is blurred and does not reflect reality. Commercial media serve the interests of their owners and present the daily agenda in a way that benefits them. Oligarchic media operate at a loss and do not generate profit for their owners, so they are not part of the actual market.

Donor-funded media merely imitate their activities, occasionally taking on assignments from commercial or political structures (which, in Ukraine, are often the same thing). Today, they are barely engaged in projects since most of their time is spent on reporting. They essentially create reports on paper, not actual projects, and donors are not concerned about this. Grantors care only about publicity and an endless number of forums and meetings that imitate project results.

Donor-funded media are also not interested in creating content for users; their primary task is to meet donor expectations. Meanwhile, neither commercial nor donor-funded media are concerned about content quality because their business models are not tied to economic indicators—they are inherently unprofitable.

State media, regardless of their name, have always been a haven for people unfamiliar with journalism or the laws of the market economy. At the same time, real civic media are not developing because donors do not allocate funds to grassroots or lesser-known projects. Donors finance large programs, which once again only imitate activity.

Civic media, which could have emerged as a reaction against fake news in Ukraine, were crushed by the absence of market conditions. The lack of funding buried all promising projects. The last remaining ones have taken refuge in social networks and messaging platforms, as this is the only space where they can survive without financial support.

Today, civic and independent media—what little segment remains—are “suicidal actors” who either become “political prostitutes” or die out because ordinary citizens are not accustomed to paying for content. Instead, they are willing to consume any free information junk in abundance, as long as they do not have to pay for the truth.

In other words, the problem of developing free and independent media in Ukraine lies in the fact that this environment exists outside economic laws and, as such, is inherently unsustainable.

The Main Task of Grants is to Imitate Development, or Even Better — to Hinder It

You will probably be surprised when I say that grant providers in our country are never criticized. On the contrary, they are praised and their participation is constantly emphasized as important. But this is actually true.
And the reason behind it is more than ridiculous: everyone is convinced that by doing so, they secure a future opportunity to become part of a grant program. They fail to realize that this behavior is fundamentally similar to the very model that allowed corruption to flourish and continue thriving in our country.

Do you know why corruption is impossible to eradicate here?
Because everyone who knows about a scheme or participates in it will never report it, hoping that one day they will take the place of the corrupt official, and those under them will not interfere with looting the country, just as they did before. They do not understand that this situation is inherently impossible.
Just as the list of grant recipients does not change year after year, only those capable of buying their positions replace corrupt officials.

Having no illusions about “grant-eating,” I will share with you the reasons that justify calling grants a form of harm.

1. Crutches Instead of Wings

Grant assistance is a set of crutches given to us so that we never develop and cannot stand on our own.
No donor aid has ever helped anyone. It has only corrupted and turned recipients into infantile fools who lose their drive for life, stop fighting, and stop seeking new opportunities.

Lay a person in bed, feed them with the most exquisite delicacies, and within two months, they will turn into a plant.

Difficulties that we overcome by ourselves, whether with limited or no resources, at the very least make us stronger and, at most, more resourceful. We become more flexible and inventive, and less fragile.
There is a problem — a person finds a solution.
No problem — a person degrades to the level of a plant.
Donors understand this perfectly, which is why the number of their programs keeps growing.

2. Unfair Competitive Advantage

It may seem that if grants are harmful, and by receiving them we lose more than we gain, it is good that they go entirely to the “grant-eaters,” who for decades have been imitating active work through endless and pointless training sessions, seminars, forums, and other “coffee breaks.” But no, unfortunately.

The problem lies in the fact that donors create non-competitive conditions in the market. More precisely, the self-regulating and self-developing market ceases to exist.
“Grant-eaters” — imitators who receive donor assistance — gain an advantage over those who, using their own resources, try to create something useful.

For example, a “grant-eater” always has resources for PR and advertising, as this is an essential part of imitating active work, after which they may do nothing at all. Meanwhile, real activists have no money for advertising, and no one knows about their achievements at all.

We hear about millions of pseudo-activists promoted by the media, but we know nothing about those who work at the grassroots level to change the country.
Artificial, synthetic, plastic, celluloid “grant-eaters” are literally devouring living, genuine, organic activists who evolve according to the laws of a competitive and, therefore, living market.
Healthy market competition disappears due to donors.

3. “Grant-Eaters” — Weeds

The third problem is space.
The problem with weeds is not that they are inedible, unattractive, or useless to cultivate.
The problem is that weeds take over essential space and prevent cultivated plants from growing. Simply put, there is no room for them to live.

“Grant-eaters” essentially fill the entire informational and operational space, creating a monopoly on civic activism and destroying everything alive, organic, and natural.

4. Donors create and lock endless loops of processes

If we consider corruption as a whole, it can be described as an economy of processes.
The more prolonged the process and the more resources it consumes, the more efficient this economy becomes.
Donors, corrupt officials, like any other parasites, need long-lasting process programs because they allow the continuation year after year, which, in turn, ensures continuous funding.
Solutions destroy the economy of processes.
That is why when donors are offered to fund a solution, rejection is guaranteed.
A solution closes a problem and allows for moving to the next level, dealing with the next issue. And this at the very least means coming up with new schemes of embezzlement, kickbacks, and work imitation.
A process that never ends allows “grant-eaters” to live comfortably, which suits grantors perfectly.
It is also important to remember that time is a limited resource, and while we are engaged in or observing these processes, we are not looking for new solutions, and as a result, there is no progress.
In fact, today, we are being “helped” to create loops of processes and are never funded for solutions.
We are helped to waste time on processes so that we have no time left to search for real solutions.

5. Expertise

In the decision-making process regarding the granting or rejection of funding, “experts” participate who have been promoting “their own” projects for years.
Thanks to large-scale PR campaigns, they are respected and influential figures in society. No one would even think that they are incompetent fraudsters who have been involved in corrupt schemes, embezzlement, and kickbacks for years.
These fraudsters fear, like fire, being confronted one-on-one with people who have real experience and expertise and, as a result, can prove their incompetence.
This is why their mission includes destroying real, competent expert communities, replacing them with their own “paper-certified” ones.
Due to their lack of experience and desire to change anything in the country (since changes would destroy their position), these honorary experts of such organizations actively oppose any innovative or genuinely revolutionary ideas and projects.

These are the five biggest problems explaining why free cheese, no matter how much we get, has not helped us change the country. Or rather, why the imitation of change, achieved through an enormous amount of resources, has resulted in the fact that today, we have almost no significant achievements.

Summing up what was said six years ago, I would like to add: at that time, I couldn’t believe that under the guise of fighting corruption, this entire grant-activist crowd did not defeat corruption but took charge of it.
All these young reformers, tenderly embraced by grant-funded media, have become far more terrifying and cynical corrupt officials than their predecessors.
As one deeply knowledgeable person told me on this matter: “The old corrupt officials stole from profits, but the young team steals from losses.”
It’s hard to argue with this. No matter how large the embezzlement schemes were before 2019, state enterprises remained profitable.
The new team of young reformers decided not to work under the old schemes. And within just a few years, profitable enterprises became loss-making, and the level of income for corrupt officials surpassed all boundaries of decency.