NGO: Russian experience

The law on supporting socially oriented NGOs was adopted in 2010 in the Russian Federation, and starting from January 1, 2017, such organizations had the opportunity to gain a new status - a performer of socially useful services - and to gain access to such services and to budget financing on an equal basis with state institutions. In this regard, the question arose about monitoring the effectiveness of NGO activities. According to the chairman of the committee Sergei Gavrilov, not only the state, but also civil society should evaluate the work of non-profit organizations. The criteria for such an assessment must be worked out collectively. According to the data, 95 socially oriented NGOs registered in the Ministry of Justice. But only 10-15% of them really work.

Director of the Center for Designing Sustainable Development of Civil Society Institutes of the State University of Management, executive director of the Center for Interregional Programs and Projects Andrei Golovin reported that in 2016, NGOs provided social assistance to almost 32 million citizens. About 6 million people received charitable assistance. In 2016, state support was less than 1.5% of NGOs. At the same time, the average amount of financing was about six million rubles. According to preliminary estimates, in 2017 organizations that receive budgetary funds will be one and a half to two times more.

Golovin is sure, the same requirements cannot be presented to NGO as for commercial organizations. In his opinion, the question arises of creating special conditions for their functioning, reporting and control. In this connection, the Executive Director of ANO "Center for Interregional Programs and Projects" proposed to create a unified automated information system for NGOs and work out a variant of electronic registration of the legal address of such organizations. The electronic system will allow the third sector to save on accountability to one hundred million rubles annually. Currently, the total annual costs of operating NGO for the compilation of all kinds of reports are estimated at 372 million rubles.

Irina Mersiyanova, director of the Center for Studies of Civil Society and the Nonprofit Sector of the Higher School of Economics, noted that the sector of socially oriented NGOs is still being formed and not all organizations are ready to enter into relations with the states so that they can then be asked from adults. Monitoring NGOs is necessary, the director of the ANO "Information Culture" Ivan Begtin is sure. Sergei Gavrilov suggested, for a more effective monitoring system, to strengthen the powers of the territorial directorates of the Ministry of Justice, noting also that the creation of such a system would require changing the current legislation.