Daria Cherepanova: "The realization that you’ve made someone happier is heartwarming"

27 march 2025

Our March issue of the About People and Good Deeds column features Daria Cherepanova, a ZapSibNeftekhim employee in charge of volunteering activities implemented under SIBUR’s Formula for Good Deeds social investment program at the Tobolsk production site discussing her insights into her work routine and experience in organizing local charitable initiatives at ZapSibNeftekhim, and offering tips on how one can effectively engage fellow employees in volunteering activities.

Your position at ZapSibNeftekhim is that of an expert. Could you please describe your core responsibilities?
I have been employed by ZapSibNeftekhim as an expert of the Department for Government Relations and Socio-Economic Projects since 2022. My core responsibility is to promote socio-economic development of our host region, which is Tobolsk Oblast in our case. I oversee our company’s contractual relations with outside counterparties and stakeholders as part of our Charity and Commercial Sponsorship lines of activity.

On top of everything else, you coordinate SIBUR’s People Changing the World volunteering program in Tobolsk. What specifically does this line of work entail?
Outside of my job overseeing contracts, I do happen to manage SIBUR’s Formula for Good Deeds volunteering program at ZapSibNeftekhim. My job is to provide grantees including non-profits, community groups, and employee-led teams implementing volunteering initiatives under the auspices of the Formula for Good Deeds program in Tobolsk with organizational and communication support. I also facilitate corporate-wide charity campaigns: any interested employee can reach out to me to learn about relevant initiatives or to submit a request for assistance that my GR colleagues and myself would pass on to potential beneficiaries. Though it’s my responsibility, my GR colleagues at ZapSibNeftekhim are always there by my side and are eager to help!

SIBUR’s Tobolsk-based facility has been involved in running many diverse corporate campaigns. Which one is your favorite and why?
Each one of them has a special place in my heart, but the one called Get to be a Santa Claus stands out. In the run-up to each New Year’s celebration, our coworkers help grant holiday wishes of the children cared for by Tobolsk’s branch of the All-Russian Association of the Disabled. Being able to work a miracle and help fulfil a child’s most coveted dream, something they can only entrust to a letter addressed to Santa Claus, is deeply moving as it helps rekindle one’s happy childhood memories and bring you joy. You live out each of such letters. These handwritten letters to Santa, filled with hopes or small triumphs, do touch me deeply. Knowing you’ve made someone happier warms your heart. Every volunteer has a project they find the most memorable. Ildar Isakov’s The World As Seen Through Another Set of Eyes is that kind of project for me. Under this project, children with disabilities were invited to take part in various master classes and in a graffiti art contest. They were asked to draw their piece of graffiti on a piece of paper and express their impressions of the world around them by depicting it as something as unique as they themselves are. We even transferred one such drawing to a wall of one of our city’s buildings after we had gotten all the necessary authorizations, invited street artists, and fought off local motorists who attempted to park their vehicles on the lawn opposite the art wall! The unveiling of this piece of street art, attended by the young artists, was a really exciting occasion. Everyone looked so inspired, including the residents of the building that is now adorned with this piece of art.

Does ZapSibNeftekhim carry out any charity initiatives that are unique just to this Tobolsk-based facility of SIBUR?
Yes, indeed! We closely coordinate our activities with the local municipal government, with non-profits, and with the city’s residents. Which is to say that implementation of local and unique events is foundational to what we do. For example, we have been supporting a locally based and fast-growing volunteering imitative called 28 Loops whose participants knit woolen clothing for prematurely-born infants by donating more than 100 skeins of wool yarn to regional perinatal centers. Having learned about the existence of this club, we decided to support them and launched a charitable I will knit you a life campaign. As part of this campaign, employees of ZapSibneftekhm purchased more than 100 skeins of woolen yarn, so that the club's volunteers no longer had to worry about where to get the money to buy quality materials for making things for prematurely born children. Whenever we launch new campaigns, we take into account hobbies of our own employees and those of the residents of Tobolsk. As an example, our city is busy improving its cycling infrastructure: it is developing an interconnected network of high-quality bike lanes and opening rental shops carrying sports gear (bicycles, scooters). This made us come up with an idea of building something that would combine three qualities in one: useful, helpful, and entertaining. This is how our volunteering ecological project Ditch Your Car came into being. Its goal is to popularize ecofriendly means of transport, ensure pedestrians' safety, and demonstrate the stakeholders that eco-volunteering is an important and very necessary undertaking not only on a global scale, but also within the city limits of one’s home town.

The community at ZapSibNeftekhim is one of the most active volunteering groups across the entire company. What would be your Top 3 tips for managers of other SIBUR's volunteer groups in terms of getting employees involved in doing good ?

Here are my recommendations for how to involve employees in performing charitable deeds, based on my personal experience, of course:

Tip #1: Poll your colleagues to see what other volunteer projects and charity events they would like to participate in. Trust me, everyone has an idea for a kind deed in their mind, but making it happen is a challenge for many. And this where your resources and employees' ideas can create great synergy. Surveys allow people to focus on thinking, engage them, and also make them realize that their opinion is valuable to their organization. Greater engagement will be definitely assured.
Tip #2: Make sure that your plan of volunteering events includes activities that follow the format of a team competition with prizes to be awarded to the winners. The contest format will be sure to spark friendly rivalry and boost participation thanks to the clause allowing for team competitions.
Tip #3: recognize your employees for their involvement and responsiveness. It is believed that true acts of kindness should be done with no expectation of a reward. I agree with this but with just one qualification: what goes around comes around. That is why, as the supervisors of the volunteering program, we also share with our most active corporate volunteers a piece of kindness. This may include personalized thank-you letters for their participation in a particular good initiative, congratulations on the occasion of a volunteering-themed holiday, etc. Where possible, we offer our most active volunteers tickets to cultural events, and so on.

How do you attract new volunteers?
First, by arranging meetings featuring our presentations about volunteering. As a rule, new volunteers are either new employees or junior staff. As part of their onboarding, they are to attend meeting where they learn about corporate volunteering and ongoing charitable projects they can participate in, among other things. This is where we work very actively with ZapSibNeftekhim's Youth Association. I'd like to thank them for their assistance and the opportunity to focus our young specialists' attention on the company's volunteering activities. Secondly, we make active use of social media to promote volunteering, such as, for example, the Telegram channel Volunteering at ZabSibNeftekhim that is open to all participants for posting an entry. Someone may post an entry saying that kittens have been found and they need a home. Someone else may ask for help, because they are going to move next week but they can't cope with stuffing their move boxes all on their own. Others may be looking for companions to go on a trip to an animal shelter. This is where you'll find an atmosphere of kindness and mutual support. The ultimate goal is not to be shy about asking for help and not to be afraid of suggesting ideas. Thirdly, we do it by updating the mechanics of our campaigns. There are, of course, some employees who have been with the company for a long time and yet have never participated in a volunteering project or a charity event. Often this is because they physically cannot participate (as a result of working at the production site, for example, outside the office). To address that, we started setting up so-called Volunteer Attraction Centers throughout the city, including boxes for collecting needed items (for any charity event) installed at the local bike rental shop. As a result, our employees no longer have to travel to the ABK site to see the campaign's supervisor to donate what’s needed. Instead, they can leave their stuff in the box on their day off during a walk about town. This helped to significantly increase the number of “new” volunteers last year. We also actively use the premises of Tobolsk's Eco-house for our campaigns (there are already two of them!). Employees can bring recyclable materials or caps directly to the Eco-house, where they can attend a master class and sign up as “eco-volunteers”. Fourth, it’s about the team spirit. Not everyone is into campaigns where all you need to do is donate what’s required. That's why we try to include in our annual volunteering program environmental projects conducted in the format of a sure-win* contest. Last year alone, we managed to sign up more than 100 new volunteers as part of the Double Benefit* recyclables collection contest, whereas this year more than 50 unique volunteers took part in the Kind Caps contest. The basic requirement of the contests is to gather a team and do everything together. This helps bring on board new volunteers who don't like to take part in initiatives on their own.

*A sure- win contest is a contest where all participants receive awards for their participation. Depending on the place they take in the competition, these could include tickets to attend various cultural and leisure activities, partner stores’ certificates, Formula for Good Deeds souvenirs or letters of commendation.

2025 will see nine volunteering projects implemented in Tobolsk as part of SIBUR’s social investment program. Are you going to participate in your colleague’s projects?
Absolutely! It gives me pleasure to provide the necessary organizational and communication support to projects spearheaded by our employees on an annual basis. We are currently supporting one such project, a volunteering project by Yuri Yanke he called Birdhouses. I suggested to Yuri that he could put on master classes not just for students of the Tobolsk Gymnasium as per the initial plan, but also for the employees of ZapSibNeftekhim and for their children. Yuri ended up buying some extra materials needed to accommodate such a training while I helped organize online-registration for the master class and mailings for the employees. The feedback we received was positive with request to organize more of such events going forward! Incidentally, you can find an article covering this campaign on the Formula for Good Deeds’ website.

What are your volunteering program’s goals for this year?
2025 was officially declared Russia’s Year of the Defender of the Fatherland, which is why we really want to focus on supporting Tobolsk’s WWII and labor veterans. We intend to continue implementing our charitable and volunteering projects with a lot of love, dedication, and commitment while inspiring others to do the same! Ahead of us are busy spring cleanup days in May, even more eco-projects and contests, as well as charitable campaigns including our traditional company-wide ones, and more!

Learn more about our upcoming initiatives in SIBUR’s VKontakte and Telegram groups. To inquire about a ZapSibNeftekhim campaign or share your ideas, contact Daria Cherepanova, the regional coordinator of the volunteering program, at: cherepanovadm@tobolsk.sibur.ru.

Missed our past issues?

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Here are my recommendations for how to involve employees in performing charitable deeds, based on my personal experience, of course:

Missed our past issues?

)

Here are my recommendations for how to involve employees in performing charitable deeds, based on my personal experience, of course:

Missed our past issues?

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