Foundation Public Opinion

Foundation Public Opinion was established in 1991 in the structure of VTsIOM, then headed by Tatiana Zaslavskaya, as an independent public organization in order to attract funds from charitable foundations to the center. In mid-1992, the Foundation withdrew from VTSIOM and, while remaining an independent non-profit organization, became one of the leading sociological organizations in Russia, performing a large volume of commissioned and in-house research using a wide range of survey methods.

In 1996, the Foundation became the basic sociological organization of the election headquarters of Boris Yeltsin. The Foundation played a similar role in V. V. Putin's headquarters in 1999-2000 and in 2004.

In 1998, the FOM was re-registered under the Law of the Russian Federation "On Non-profit organizations".

In the 2013 Moscow mayoral elections, the FOM forecast data significantly diverged from the results (Sergei Sobyanin's rating turned out to be overestimated, and his opponents were underestimated). The President of the Foundation, Alexander Oslon, acknowledged this discrepancy, explaining its only reason — the absence of a significant part of Sobyanin's potential voters; as an explanation for the low turnout, he, in turn, proposed the hypothesis that on election day many of them preferred to work in dachas. Oslon also promised to make forecast models more open and interactive in the future, so that those who wish can vary the free parameters in these models and choose from the many received forecast options those that they like.

Description of the organization

The main customer and consumer of the Foundation's research results is the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation.

Other major customers of the Fund at various times were the Government of the Russian Federation, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, MOST-Bank, Gazprom, VAZ, ORT, VGTRK, NTV, NTV+, YUKOS, Interros, Video International, Interfax, RIA "Vesti", the Russian Marketing Association, as well as dozens of other Russian state, commercial, financial, advertising and information structures.

The Foundation has gained fame abroad, performing works for USIA, ROPER STARCH, BBC, Stanford University, the Eurasia Foundation, embassies of various countries in Russia, etc.

The Foundation has about 80 employees, about 500 employees of regional centers, about 1,500 interviewers. Regional network — subsidiaries and long-term partners in most of the subjects of the Russian Federation.

The Foundation has repeatedly appeared in the Russian and foreign press with publications covering the results of population surveys and methodological issues of conducting sociological research. One of the important projects of the FOMA is the comprehensive research project "People-XXI".

President of the Foundation: Oslon, Alexander Anatolyevich.