Taxpayers once again supported the Reformed Church in Hungary, aiding operations and social ministries of the Church with more than 1.643.876.480 Hungarian Forint (4.6 million Euro) and in 2020 an additional 34.000 people have chosen to donate their 1% to RCH according to the Hungarian National Tax and Customs Administration.
In the spring of 2020 292.768 people marked the RCH as beneficiary in their tax return which resulted in 1.643.876.480 forint support to our social ministries. The donated amount increased by 326.476.588 forint and the number donators grew with 34.052.
The National Tax and Customs Administration took the decision of those who gave their 1% to Churches in the past two years into account automatically this year too and the donations continued to increase. The support to the Catholic Church increased with 738 million forint, and the pledges to the Lutheran Church grew with 85 million. This means that an additional 74.000 and 8000 people offered their help to the two churches compared to the data from last year.
The Reformed Church in Hungary like all other churches and charities in Hungary rely on 1% pledges of the taxpayers, similarly to the “Otto per mille” system in Italy. Tax payers have the possibility to direct one percent of their already paid income tax to a particular church and a second one percent can be offered to an NGO.
In the past years the RCH supported the collection with conscious marketing communication. Each year the RCH releases a visual communications campaign to encourage the Hungarian tax payers to allocate their 1% to the church. Through research and experiences of campaigns, we are more able to effectively succeed in reaching those strata of Hungarian society, who are open to the messages of the church. In recent years, the central element of communication was to introduce and demonstrate that the church is not only a faith community but also active in social work.
In this emergency situation, caused by the virus, the RCH encouraged people that even though nothing is for free, with our donations we can help and it doesn’t cost a penny. Thanks to these pledges enable RCH to provide social help all over the country in the future as well.