“We’ve had these discussions countless times,” said Igor Markov, a director of the nonprofit Nova Ukraine, about where to draw the line between what aid is humanitarian versus that which supports the active defense — the fighting — in his home country. His Stanford, California-based organization, which delivered some $59 million in aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded a year ago, decided ultimately not to support volunteer fighters.
“We realized there’s a significant amount of money that would be ruled out,” he said, pointing to platforms that facilitate matching employee donations, like Benevity, and some companies, like Google, that require nonprofits to promise their aid does not support active fighting as a condition of receiving contributions.
