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Third sector and civil society in Russia today Anna Skvortsova, NGO DC, November 2011

Third sector and civil society in Russia today Anna Skvortsova, NGO DC, November 2011. About us.

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Third sector and civil society in Russia today Anna Skvortsova, NGO DC, November 2011

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  1. Third sector and civil society in Russia todayAnna Skvortsova, NGO DC,November 2011

  2. About us The NGO Development Center(NGO DC) is anon-commercial non-governmental organization that has been working since 1994 for the development of civil society in St. Petersburg and Russia. It is one of the largest, most experienced and oldest resource centers for NGOs in Russia. The mission of the NGO Development Center is toencourage the development of civil responsibility through philanthropy development, support of civil initiatives and civil society organizations. The NGO Development Center works in two main areas: • Resource center for civil society organizations and citizens groups • Developing charities and supporting philanthropy and corporate social responsibility

  3. The Resource center for the NGOs From 1994 promote the improvement of conditions for third sector activity and enhance the professionalism of nonprofit organizations, by providing new knowledge and qualifications, up-to-date information on all important trends and events, establishing collaboration between NGOs and authorities, business and the media, as well as amongst themselves. Activities and services of the Resource center for the NGOs • Information and Analytical support aimed at strengthening the resource base and increasing the competence of NGOs sector. • Information seminars on innovations in the NGOs’ legislation, requirements to the annual reporting etc. • “School for newcomers’ NGOs” – improvement skills in legislation, accounting, reporting and management • Information seminars “Hour Fund " and "Hour of civil servants”, where NGOs meet with the directors of various funds as USAID, European Commission programs, and Consulates, etc. • Individual consultations for NGO specialists, leaders of grass-roots movements, fundraisers, PR-managers, social workers. Consulting and training services of NGO DC was used by 1,908 people in 2010. • Organization of study courses, publication of methodological materials, trainings for trainers

  4. Projects • “Public annual reports of NGOs” aimed at the introduction of standards of transparency and accountability within NGOs as well as the development of mechanisms to obtain feedback from the community. Supported by Russian Public Chamber, the Committee on Youth Policy and Interaction with NGOs of the Government of SPb • "Stronger Together: legal assistance, strengthening of cooperation of human rights organizations, citizens' initiatives and other NGOs in St. Petersburg and North-West Russia"- improving the sustainability and effectiveness of human rights NGOs, citizens' initiatives and other NGOs through the provision of legal assistance, joint training, discussions and public companies. (EU – EIDHR, MFA of Netherlands – MATRA) • "Strengthening of public support for nonprofit organizations”- to help the Russian NGOs to receive broad support from society. Implemented in several regions of Russia (Arkhangelsk, Krasnodar, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Vladivostok). (U.S. Agency for International Development) • "Improving the skills and exchange experiences in project management and fundraising in NGOs in the North-West Russia” - developing the capacity of NPOs of the North-West region through improving their financial management with the experience of the Nordic countries. (NCM)

  5. Projects • "Healthy Choices for New Generation: Strengthening the Preventive Work through Empowerment of NGOs and Voluntary Movements" - Strengthening the NGO sector and voluntary movements, working in the field of health promotion and prevention of risky behavior in the Northwest region of Russia; Strengthening cooperation between Russian and Finnish NGOs in the field of healthy lifestyles (Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland) • Support of a development of the coalition of women's initiative (action) groups and organizationsthat fights for rights at the workplace, adequate support for parenting and childcare, education etc. (General consulate of Finland in SPb) • 4 Conferences "White Nights of Fundraising” create a space for knowledge transfer and extended the Russian and international experience in FR for non-commercial projects in SPb and other Russian cities. (Russian Foundation for assistance, sponsorship, registration fees of the participants) • Forum “Social Petersburg“ (annual) and “NGOs’ Fair“ (biennial) create a space for exchange of the bestpractices for NGOs, dialogue for specialists and volunteers, development of intersectoral partnership. Organized from 2001 with the support form the city of SPb.

  6. Results of Forum “Social Petersburg“ and “NGOs’ Fair“ • Work with the wider population was the basic concept of the Fair-2010: more than 50 NGOs present their activities, services and projects • 208 NGO representatives and 53 representatives of government agencies and local administrations participated in the Forum. • More than 2000 citizens were provided by information and recommendations through experts consultations, workshop, master-classes • 208 representatives of 134 NGOs, 54 specialists of the state and municipal institutions and city districts’ administrations took part in roundtables and discussions on a development of the city, development of the third sector • 7 NGOs organized counseling desks for the citizens on urgent problems, as guaranteed state assistance for elderly, protection of environmental rights of the citizens, access to free-of-charge legal aid, employees’ rights on the workplace, human attitude to the animals, and others • 22 researchers of the third sector from various European countries participated in the Round table "The main tendencies of development NGOs in Russia and Europe" due to the cooperation with the Center for German and European Studies SPb State University. • 70 organizations has acceded to the petition addressed to President of the RF with a view to making amendments to the “Law on Tariff Increases of Insurance Premiums on Wages from 1 January 2011 ", which provides NPOs the ability to pay insurance premiums at a reduced rate • Information about the outcomes of the Forum for 2009-2010 available at http://www.soc-spb.ru

  7. Newsletters and publications • News e-mail list- 3387 subscribers in St. Petersburg and other cities. News of the third sector, information and announcements about seminars, trainings and conferences in SPb and the region, vacancies in NGOs etc. • The bulletin «Funds and Grants» - 3841 subscribers from Russia and CIS. Information about actual grants’ competitions, trainings, scholarships etc. • Publications of the NGO DC on various topics issued in 2010: improvement of the public trust to the NGOs, transparency and accountability of the NGOs; “Desk school for the activist” for non-registered citizens groups protecting their rights; “Financial management of the NGOs in Russia, Finland and Sweden”; “Guide on the Volunteer movements in the North-West Russia and Finland working in Healthy Lifestyle Promotion”, quarterly bulletin “Petersburg That Cares” and others. Publications available on: http://www.crno.ru/publications/books_and_brochures/

  8. Development of the charities We think society develops effectively when there is popular, asked-for, and well-developed private charity and where is a place for citizens’ initiatives in solving social problems. Therefore we consider that this part of our work has the same importance as the resource center for NGOs. Philanthropy and CSR development program has helped many companies and NGOs to develop and realize their philanthropic programs and events in an effective, creative and transparent way. Since 2006 the NGO DC holds the “Dobry Piter“ (“Kind Petersburg”). Festival (www.dobrypiter.ru) aimed at promoting private philanthropy among citizens of St. Petersburg.

  9. Charity festival «Dobry Piter» • The aim of festival is toinvite citizens to participate in the charities and to promote charity NGOs • The mission of festival is to charge means for socially excluded groups of population, children at risk, disabled, elderly people • The model of the festival"Dobry Piter” has been successfully implemented in various cities of Russia (Krasnodar, Nizhny Novgorod, Arkhangelsk, Kaliningrad) During pastsix festivals“Dobry Piter“ (2006-2010): • More than 8 thousand people have received various kinds of aid and assistance • Citizens of Saint-Petersburg offered more than 5 million rubles in the form of money, goods, and gratuitous rendering of services • More than 60 thousand citizens of Saint-Petersburg and city visitors have taken part in festival actions • The map “Petersburg-that-Cares” created with 24 “charity points” – addresses of charity NGOs, who professionally and all over the year roundaccept donations, organize various charity activities and have effective volunteer movements. Available on the festival’s site www.dobrypiter.ru,onGoogle Maps andon theweb of the volunteer’s servicewww.volonter.info • More information about the festival: www.dobrypiter.ru

  10. NGO DC is supported by: • CharlesStewartMottFoundation • European Commission (IBPP, EIDHR) • Committee for youth policy and interaction with the NGOs of St. Petersburg • Social committee of St. Petersburg • Health committee of St. Petersburg • MATRAProgramme of theMinistryforForeignAffairs of Netherlands • Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland – Program of a support for cooperation of the NGOs in neighborhood area • U.S. AgencyforInternationalDevelopment • USRF Foundation Annual report 2010: http://www.crno.ru/about/annual_reports/

  11. Third sector in Russia • The NGO sector is important for current Russian economy, providing 1.2% GDP, employment for the 2% of population, produce unique services, realization of individual initiative and social entrepreneurship. • NGOs are also a source of social innovation and play an important role in the development of Russian democracy. • According to the Rosstat, there are 360.000 non-governmental, non-commercial organizations in Russia (1.1.2009). According to the Ministry of Justice of RF, there are 222.736 NGOs (1.1. 2010), including: 119.247 – public associations, 23.499 – religious organizations, 7 - political parties, 79.988 – others types of the NGOs.* • 38% are really functioning (active) • 0,92% ofeconomically active population of Russia work full or part time in the NGOs. Most of them are full time workers (84%) • Involvement of the volunteers in the third sector is in average 26 hours per month. Cost of volunteer’s work in the third sector – if paid as work of the employees = 16.4 billion rubles *All-Russian survey of the NGOs (2009) – 4824 organizations; overall surveillance. Based on the materials of the Centre for Studies of Civil Society and Non-for-profit Sector of the National Research University Higher school of Economics (Lev Yakobson, 2010) , http://grans.hse.ru

  12. Structure of the third sector in Russia

  13. Main activities of the NGOs (according to the international classification, %)

  14. Territory of the activities of the NGOs

  15. Full-time staff of the NGOs

  16. Average monthly salary of the NGO’s staff • Average month salary – 8133 rub. • Average salary of the well-paid staff of the NGOs is 1,8 more than average salary of the low-paid staff • Every 5th NGOs had to cut salaries because of economical crisis in 2009

  17. Biggest problems of the functioning of the NGOs (%, 2007/2009)

  18. Financial resources of the NGOs

  19. Volume of financing of the NGOs in 2008

  20. Services provided by the NGOs

  21. Public trust towards the NGOs • One third of the Russians trust to the at least one type of the NGOs; only 4% of the Russians trust to more than 5 types of the NGOs • 47 % of Russians, who are informed about NGOs activities, trust to at least one type of the NGO. Russians who participate in the NGOs activities, trust to more types of the NGOs than those who don’t take part • Those Russians who trust to the more types of the NGOs, have higher level of education, are younger and have higher income • Public attitude to charity and public organizations’ activities in general remain at a high positive level – in average 84% of respondents* expressed their positive attitude to such activities. • Researches indicate an evident shift of public opinion towards the NGOs: the portion of potential participants of the third sector activities increased significantly. However the increase of practical participants is not indicated. Thus the value of involvement in NGO activities increased in public attitudes but this increase hasn’t influenced the real behavior yet. *Research “Public support of NGO in Russia’s regions: problems and perspectives” (second wave) was conducted in May-June 2010 in Moscow, Barnaul, Kaliningrad, Krasnodar, and Nizhniy Novgorod by “Zadorin’s sociological research group (ZIRCON)”

  22. NGOs in St. Petersburg More than 13,000 noncommercial organizations registered in St. Petersburg today 6500 of them are public associations (membership) On the average there are 1,6 non-governmental organizations per one thousand inhabitants of St.-Petersburg that corresponds to the standards of countries of Western Europe Social services, leisure and culture, protection of the human rights, health promotion, environmental issues are main spheres ofactivities of the NGOs - Specific feature of the NGOs in St. Petersburg is high level of education, competence and skills of its staff

  23. Summary • Social / societal problems become more complicated today and solutions could be found only through partnership and cooperationofall sectors. • Global economical crisis left no sector untouched. Post-crisis - new opportunities: there is a need for a new dialogue between the state and society/citizens. • In Russia we witness that huge problems remain unsolved, including unsatisfactory situation of the third sector in Russia today. Although the nonprofit sector in Russia experienced insignificant juridical changes in 2008, the overall instability in their basis increased. • The main factors that effect this situation have systemic character: • The continuing and strengthening policy of state paternalism • The lack of necessary organizational and financial resources in the sector • Insufficient development of the self-consciousness and self-organization of the third sector • The orientation of CSOs activities to state instead of society’s interests • The most obvious tendency in Russia witnessed last years was a decrease in the number of organizations focused on advocacy and human rights defense, development of civil society, and information and counseling activities. • The financial situation surrounding civil society organizations continues to stay weak and unstable. Many organizations are functioning in the conditions of financial instability and are forced to direct their efforts towards securing their own survival which, in turn, takes away from their main activities of assisting society.

  24. Summary (2) • Civil society organizations continue to maintain a dependent role in relationships with the state and commercial sectors. As such, nonprofits are not able to sufficiently influence those sectors. One of the reasons for this is the absence of a real social basis of civil society themselves: people do not know about the activities of civil society organizations, and, as a result, do not trust them and lack practical experience being involved in their activities. • Yet another tendency today is an increase in the dependency of CSOs on state financial support. On one hand, this has been helping to increase the sustainability of Russia’s third sector. On the other hand, however, this leads to establishing of a group of CSOs that are closely linked (joint) to state structures. In this case CSOs are less likely to find effective solutions to acute social problems and do not act according to the expectations of the population. • This is leading to a situation where a large part of people’s social initiatives are being implemented outside of the third sector, particularly as initiative groups’ activities, which sometimes includes protest.

  25. Summary (3) • Thus, one of the most important joint priorities in for the third sector in Russia is to integrate NGOs into current economy and to develop sustainable civil society sector. Existing financing mechanisms in Russia are still not leading to the sustainable development of the third sector and may even be causing many of grass-root CSOs to fail or be forced to join bigger and stronger organizations. • We need to raise economic effectiveness, accountability and transparency of NGOs. • The nonprofit sector needs to improve communication with the population, increase visibility and accountability, and develop low-threshold methods to attract the attention of various groups of people to their activities. • Emphasis should also be placed on strengthening trust with the public and finding new ways of interaction with media.

  26. Thank you for your attention! www.crno.ru crno@crno.ru Annual report 2010: http://www.crno.ru/about/annual_reports/ Phone/fax: +7 (812) 718-3794 Address:Ligovsky pr. 87, office 300 191040 St. Petersburg, Russia

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