From February to March 2004, a questionnaire was given to participants attending presentations of the “ United Way” publications and the Portal. The purpose of the questionnaire was to find out the basic problem areas for Belarusian NGO activity.

The following basic success factors were considered:

·       The intrinsic NGO potential (its strong and the weak areas);

·       The NGO’s target group;

·       The financial position of the organisation, both now and in the future and also the degree to which various basic funding sources are needed.

They were also asked to briefly describe what the basic obstacle was to their organisations.

Of those who participated in the questionnaire: 28% were NGO heads; 26.4% were members of staff; 37.7% were NGO members and 5.7% were volunteers;

Of those who participated: 41.5% were representatives of local NGOs; 47.2% were representatives of national NGOs and national NGO unions; 11.3% were representatives of international NGOs.

As a rule, the activity of an NGO is oriented towards a specific socio-economic target group.

72% of the NGO representatives taking part in the survey indicated that the activity of their organisation was oriented towards children and young people; 34% said that their activity was towards adults (28%  towards women).

NGO representatives were also asked about which vulnerable socio-economic groups their organisation worked with. The following categories were mentioned: refugees and asylum seekers, military personnel, families with many children, the aged, the sick, disabled adults and children etc. 68% of those taking part in the survey indicated that their organisations worked with vulnerable socio-economic groups, i.e. are charitable.