The NGOs' professionalizing is the outcome of several factors. First of all, people have put a lot of efforts into self-education(in 1990s many courses were organized for the representatives of the community sector, these programs were organized and financed usually by the foreign foundations, with this system being practically demolished in the last five years and the training programs are very scarce). Also, the management quality is growing as the organizations compete more fiercely for different types of resources. This competition has been intensified due to the active granting policy of various state and municipal organizations. As the pretty strict application form has been adopted by most of them, applying has to a large extent disciplined the NGOs and given them new knowledge. Before many organizations, especially the smaller ones, did not realize the necessity to calculate budgets and sustained on the 'get it - spend it' principle without trying to manage the future. But the organizations, engaged in welfare assistance, disabled assistance have to plan their activities in advance. Working on projects helps the people to understand how the income is constituted, what will be the expenses, what are the possible sources of financing and how should they be addressed.

 

The very bad factor among the ones, influencing the non-governmental organizations' management is the absence of steady financing. What I mean is not the program financing, but the staff fees and salaries and resources, needed to support a network. The business is very reluctant in financing these expenses. But lacking the funds for its own existence the organization can not be stable - it has to pay the rent, phone and internet bills, salaries to the permanent staff members. Therefore more and more organizations start providing commercial services. And if they are successful in this filed they practically detach themselves from the civic activity and transform into a small businesses.

 

Another negative factor is lack of democracy in the NGO governing. Such structures as the trustee's board or observational board either do not exist or act only formally, while in other countries they perform a key part in the organization's resources accumulation and distribution. As a rule, here an organization's leader determines its policy, the forms and priorities of its activity.  Such authoritarianism and the non-transparency of management are two main reasons for the lack of trust in the population's attitude to the NGOs (according to the latest poll of the Russian Center for Public Opinion Research only 4 percent of the respondents said that they trusted the NGOs - it is a very small number taking into consideration the presence of 600 000 NGOs in the country). Another disturbing fact is that as the incomes of the NGOs are growing they become more reluctant to attract volunteers. Only a small number of the NGOs are still doing that. It is a distressing fact as the public organizations have to involve the population in their activity. Of course, working with volunteers is complicated and requires a lot of effort from the organization, and specialists are needed to take care of this job. However, by refusing to work with the volunteers the civic organizations deprive themselves of the popular support, creating a vacuum around them.

 

Speaking of different groups of NGOs, the best management practices among the ones that I know are adopted in Jewish NGOs. What is characteristic for them is the skill to organize different types of work that are all crucial for the interests of the beneficiaries. For example the elderly welfare programs are organized in a way that does not limit a client to a certain set of services (that is often very humiliating for a person) but has a choice - for example, whether to eat in the charity canteen or to get food supplies delivered home.

 

When I got acquainted with the work of the Pskov charity organization the Hesed Yitzchak I was astonished by one detail: a retired man who received assistance from this organization was at the same time one of its volunteers and assisted other clients. Helping the others gave him a feeling of capability.

 

I have talked about this example on my seminars for the representatives of the public sector and the people were very interesting as such experience is universal and can be utilized by other organizations that work with such type of audiences.

 

The following aspects can be identified while analyzing the NGO-business relationships. The large corporations usually donate for the high-profile charitable projects after having received the approval from the authorities and I do not think this is negative. Speaking of smaller businesses, I do not know a single entrepreneur who would not somehow support one or another social program (providing money or goods and services). The smaller the business is, the more direct interaction with the environment is experienced by its owner. As the customers live in this environment, the businessmen cannot help participating in the social programs that exist around him. But there is s sad tendency of the money that could be raised by the NGOs, being extracted by the state and municipal structures for some local needs, such as fixing the school roof. The resources that could be utilized for public sector development are used to cover the holes in municipal budgets. For the authorities it is an easy way to fix the problems without putting any effort into securing the budget. Such voluntary-forceful practice corrupts the businessmen as well, as they are getting used to donate for the public causes only when being pressed to do so.

At the same time I have to mention the recent growth in the number of grant competitions, carried out by the municipalities in cooperation with business structures. The grant competition practice is becoming more and more widespread. The regions carry out various competitions, focused on the local issues. The process of resource allocation for the NGOs has also started on a federal level. This year, according to the president's decision, 500 million rubles will be granted to support the No's activity. Half of this amount will be distributed by the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, another half - by the presidential representatives in the regions. The Public Chamber will sponsor the creation of the regional public activity support centers and networks, the presidential representatives will provide funding for the local NGOs' projects.