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.

78.8% of NGO representatives indicated that their organisations were inadequately funded and 21.2% indicated that their organisation’s activity was sufficiently funded. This survey enables us to find out what expectations NGO representatives hold with regard to the financial status of their NGOs.

The optimistic expectations of those taking part should first be noted. Of those indicating deficiencies in funding (those who selected the answer option: “Few financial resources” when defining their financial status,) 43.6% expect the situation to improve. Of those who chose the “sufficient financial resources” option, 45.5% expect the situation to stay the same and 36.4% believe that the situation will improve.

20.9% of the NGO representatives that answered this question consider the financial status of their NGO as chronically bad. 46.2% consider it as currently bad but foresee changes ahead.

Only 7% of the NGO representatives expect the financial status of their organisation to get worse, two thirds of which are representatives of organisations which see the currently bad financial status of their organisation as temporary. It should be pointed out that all NGO managers taking part in the survey selected the “Few financial resources” answer option in rating the financial status of their NGO. More than half of them (57.1%) however, anticipate that it will improve.

The graph below describes the extent to which NGOs require each basic financial source (%) and how often they are used.

As the graph shows, the most consistent source of NGO funding according to this survey, is membership and entrance fees from organisation members. Although it should be said that more than half of those taking part (56.3%) indicated that this funding source is not used in practice. A little under a third of those taking part in the survey (28.6%) indicated foreign funds and programs to be a consistent source of funding.

The majority of NGOs evaluated by this survey (65.9%) does not use generating profit as a source of funding. 11.3% of the NGOs taking part always or quite often use this funding source to finance their work. From this survey, it can also be said that a third of NGOs undertake profit-based fund-raising activity to some degree.

More than half of the NGO representatives taking part in the survey use foreign sources of funding (see graph columns labeled: “Foreign, state funds and programs” and “Foreign private funds and non-commercial organisations”.) It should be mentioned here that foreign private funds can receive state funding and so the division between state and private in this respect is not always strict.

Information on “Participation in state projects with specific goals” and “Donations” as funding sources can be seen on the graph.