What began six years ago as a movement of young people dissatisfied with the government has become a reasonably profitable business. The association, Million Moments for Democracy, has raised nearly 100 million crowns from donors in the first five years of its existence. In recent years, most of the money has not been flowing into demonstrations but into salaries and operations.
According to the annual report 2022, published by the “Momentaries” at the end of last year, of the costs of 23 million crowns, only 4.6 million went to public actions. This was despite it being a year when presidential elections were held, in which the head of ANO, Andrej Babiš, clashed in the second round with the former chairman of the NATO military committee, Petr Pavel.
“We also have other activities than demonstrations and public actions,” said Million Moments spokesperson Antonín Pášma. “We process our political analyses, publish a daily summary of the most important news under the title Stay in the Picture, offer educational programs in schools, support our volunteers in their actions in the regions,” he added.
In 2022, the association raised 19.5 million crowns from its supporters, and total costs amounted to more than 23 million. The difference was covered by saved money. Most of the money, over 16.8 million crowns, was raised by the “Momentaries” through the Darujme—cz payment gateway. The largest donation amounted to 300,000 crowns. In the list of donors of over 100,000 crowns, businessman Martin Moravec and the companies Elektroštika and Fany Gastroservis appear.
As previous annual reports show, the costs of the association are increasing. In 2021, the association had revenues of more than 26 million crowns and expenses of just under 22.8 million crowns. For the organization of public actions, the association spent more than 5.4 million crowns in 2021, when the Covid-19 pandemic still plagued the world, 800,000 crowns more than in 2022, when the campaign for the Castle was running. Together for wages, care of volunteers, administration, and management remuneration, the association spent over 10 million crowns in 2021.