About us

Our history

We invite you to familiarize yourself with the history of the ORLEN Foundation, its mission and the goals we strive to pursue together with our founder, ORLEN OLREN.

Past names

The ORLEN Foundation was preceded by the Petrochemia for Children Foundation, established in 1997 to help children requiring specialist medical care and to support health care facilities providing medical care to children. In the years 1997 - 2002, the Petrochemia for Children Foundation financed the costs of operations, treatments and specialist examinations, stay in hospitals and sanatoriums as well as rehabilitation centers, purchase of individual rehabilitation equipment, prostheses and other means of medical supplies.

The Foundation was registered on 20 August 2001 under the name "ORLEN – DAR SERCA" Foundation. In 2019, in order to strengthen its coherence with ORLEN, the foundation changed its name to the ORLEN Foundation.

ORLEN foundation

The ORLEN Foundation is funded by Polish Koncern Naftowy ORLEN. Funds received from ORLEN are allocated for the purposes set out in the Foundation's Articles of Association directly to persons in need or through other non-governmental, social and local government organisations, etc. In the course of its activity so far, the Foundation has mainly supported the sick, those living in poverty and those in need of care. 

Our goals

The Foundation was and is primarily interested in children, especially children deprived of natural parental care. Therefore, since its inception, the Foundation has allocated significant resources to help and develop the most advantageous form of foster parenthood, which are family children's homes. The Foundation organizes and finances summer holidays for family orphanages, helps them with their current needs, and tries to remember about them during the Christmas and New Year period. 

Helping talented children and young people from poor families manifests itself in the implementation of scholarship programs. The Foundation gives many young people, especially from rural environments, a chance for self-fulfilment, for a better tomorrow. 

Both in the past and now, the Foundation pursues educational goals by inspiring and supporting programs related to the safety of children, m.in. on the way to and from school. It also supports the educational activities of other organizations. 

A very important part of the Foundation's activities - throughout its existence - are activities for the benefit of sick and, above all, sick children. It is for their needs, those cruelly experienced by fate, that the Management Board of the Foundation most often grants donations. The Foundation often helps hospitals, hospices, organizations working for sick children in need of rehabilitation, granting them donations for the purposes of treatment and rehabilitation of children.

Cultural heritage

As far as possible and needs, the Foundation supports activities related to cultural heritage and the promotion of national tradition. An expression of the implementation of this important statutory goal is participation in the renovation of monuments, financing school trips to places important for the history of Polish, anniversary celebrations, commemorating people who have written well in the history of our nation and the world. 

Our founder, ORLEN, is a modern player on the fuel and energy market, the largest company in Central and Eastern Europe, listed in the prestigious global rankings Fortune Global 500, Platts TOP250 and Thompson Reuters TOP100. The ORLEN Group operates on 6 home markets – in Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Lithuania, Slovakia and Canada. For several years, ORLEN has been recognized as the most valuable brand in Poland, valued at PLN 4.7 billion. ORLEN is also the only company in the region that has been awarded the prestigious title of The Most Ethical Company for the sixth time in a row by the American Ethisphere Institute.