Don’t give, don’t take bribes

An overall program name, in reality it consists of different separate projects/campaigns. The main goal of the ‘Don’t give, don’t take bribes’ program was to raise awareness among the citizens that ‘petty corruption’, e.g. bribes to a road police, small gifts to doctors, bribes to ticket controlling services etc., is also corruption. It also attempted to change the perception that corruption is only a part of big business and draw attention to the fact that also regular people do encounter it and may act against this harmful phenomenon. The project aimed to create a positive campaign to show that one can say ‘no’ to corruptive activities and that indeed there are regular people, who do act against corruption. This undertaking also intended to reveal to people that any corruption undermines healthy functioning of the state and of every institution functioning within it.
The project was invented and run predominantly by two organizations: Ruch Normalne Państwo (Regular State Movement) and Stowarzyszenie Komunikacji Marketingowej SAR. The former organization is a voluntary civil society organization to which people donate their time and effort. They managed to find a large number of sponsors and thanks to that develop a country wide campaign in 2006, which lasted 3 months and was supported by multiple media (press, radio, TV). According to one of news articles the market value of the campaign in 2006 was ca. EUR 370.000!
The project had different editions starting with a single city campaign (in 2004 in Warsaw). Later on it pick up speed and scaled up onto the whole country. During annually organized ‘day without a bribe’ various happenings and actions take place across the whole country. Local NGOs and civil society organizations participate in them. Badges with campaign main slogan are distributed, as well as bumper stickers. Also envelopes are publicly burned to symbolize fight with corruption. Anti-corruption media campaigns ran for 2-3 months a year between 2006-2008. They included, besides already mentioned actions, TV and radio spots, billboard and citylight posters and running an internet website (www.niedajelapowek.pl).