Given the prestige of PKO BP's brand, we feel obliged to sponsor Poland-wide cultural and sports events, educational projects, social campaigns and various initiatives of local institutions and communities. The Bank's sponsoring and donation activity was focused on supporting culture and sports, saving life and health, and broadly understood education. We were involved in more than 700 sponsoring events and granted over 900 donations. Throughout the year the Bank continued its long-term PKO Bank Polski for National Culture programme. Under the programme we provided patronage for national museums and philharmonics all over Poland, the National Theatre, the National Library, among others. We also sponsored the Opera Foundation, the Parisians Polish Radio Music Festival, Actors' Singing Contest and International Chopin Festival in Duszniki Zdrój. Thanks, among others, to our financial support, the National Library was able to perform conservation work on invaluable manuscripts by Cyprian Kamil Norwid. The Bank was also involved in the purchase of Fryderyk Chopin's manuscript of Etude No. 4 Op. 10 in the Sotheby action house. The manuscript was presented as a gift to the Fryderyk Chopin Museum in Warsaw. In 2004 PKO BP assumed the patronage of the Centenary Celebrations in the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. The climax of the celebrations consisted in three large-scale exhibitions showing the artistic achievements of the Academy's students and professors. During the Olympic year the Bank continued its involvement in the sponsoring of the Polish Olympians in 2002-2006 and the Polish women's foil varsity team, under the PKO Bank Polski for the Polish Olympian Team programme. Implemented throughout the year, the PKO BP Olympic Programme included the Olympic poster contest, Olympic web site, promotion of limited edition credit cards, sponsoring of TV sports news during the Olympic Games, sponsoring of the Olympic Year with the Radio outdoor events, the sports contest in the Polish Radio's Program III, and finally the sponsoring of 70th Poland's Best Athlete Poll. Our Programme was recognised by experts as the most consistent example of how to utilise sponsoring for the purposes of brand and product promotion. The third creative sponsoring programme called PKO Bank Polski Close to You fosters the Bank's relationship with local and regional communities, as well as academic and educational circles. For years the Bank has cooperated with higher education institutions in organising conferences and symposia that are significant from a scientific, economic or social point of view. In 2004, PKO BP endowed scholarships for young scientists under the 4th edition of Stay with Us Campaign organised by the Polityka weekly. At the end of 2004, libraries in one hundred smalltown schools were given a 40-volume collection of 20th-century masterpieces. We provided financial support to hospitals, foundations and associations involved in health and life saving. It was used to purchase 40 medical devices, one ambulance and two handicap transport vehicles, as well as the treatment and rehabilitation of children and youth. The Bank supported the Cardiac Surgery Development Foundation (FRK) for another year by its involvement in the project to build a Polish Artificial Heart. We provide support to a few dozen family-type children's homes all over Poland, both in terms of financial and non-financial aid, including clothes, school equipment, toys, as well as summer and winter holidays for children.
