The challenge: Closing the gap between donors and communities
Traditional humanitarian funding often loses momentum and money to administrative layers. A significant share of donations can be absorbed by operational costs before reaching the people they're intended for. Meanwhile, small towns and rural communities in war-affected regions of Ukraine struggle to make their voices heard. They have urgent, concrete needs — a protective shelter, a rebuilt school, a resilience centre for internally displaced people — but no efficient way to present those needs directly to the international community.
Epicentr and Itera set out to change this by creating a platform where every contribution is meaningful, traceable, and tied to a real project on the ground.
The solution: A digital marketplace for recovery
Blaho for Communities works as a digital marketplace where donors and communities meet. Communities submit their reconstruction projects through the platform. Each application undergoes multiple levels of verification; the system checks for completeness, relevance, urgency, social impact, and clarity before a project is approved and made visible to donors.
Once verified, international donors — whether organisations, businesses, or individuals — can choose specific projects to fund. Contributions are converted into digital certificates that can be used to purchase Ukrainian-made goods and services through Epicentr's extensive network, rather than importing aid from abroad. This approach supports the local economy while delivering targeted support.
Projects currently on the platform span the Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Sumy, Kyiv, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia regions, covering needs from protective infrastructure to community resilience centres.
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