100% of those taking part in the survey which was conducted under a UNDP project, considered their organisation to have “few financial resources”.

About half (44.4%) of NGO representatives taking park were NGO managers. Another 11.1% were on the organisation’s board. 14.8% of those questioned were staff members and 29.6% were NGO members. (The position of those taking part was indicated by each participant.)

Furthermore, in the June to July period of this year visitors to our Portal were asked to evaluate the financial status of their NGO. 75.68% indicated a deficiency of financial resources in their NGO. Only 5.41% of those who answered the question experience a surplus of finances – even some difficulties in managing them. 18.92% indicated that they do not experience any financial difficulties (answer option: “sufficient financial resources”). It is therefore possible to assume that a maximum of one third of Belarusian NGOs have sufficient financial resources to carry out their work.

Results from this questionnaire-based survey highlight 3 areas of change regarding the organisations of NGO representatives taking part.

18.5% of the participants of the questionnaire-based survey expect the financial situation of their NGO to improve in the next 3 months, and 42.3% expect such a change in the next six months. This figure was 33.3% in the internet-based survey.

74.1% expect the financial situation of their NGO to remain poor (answer option: “will not change”) for the next 3 months and 42.3% expect it to remain poor for the next 6 months.

7.4% expect the financial situation of their NGO to get worse in the next 3 months and 15.4% expect it to get worse in the next 6 months.

Furthermore, 50% of those taking part on the internet-based survey expect the situation to get worse and 16.67% expect it to remain the same.

It is evident that the majority of Belarusian NGOs do not have permanent sources of funding or the permanent funding which they do have is not enough for them to work effectively.

Funding NGO projects greatly depends on how closely NGOs interact with various CSO support structures. Structures which support NGO projects include state structures (structures of authority, mass media organisations, commercial enterprises, various NGOs (including resource centres) and Belarusian and foreign funds.

In comparison with other support structures, the measured interaction between NGOs and state structures is much closer. 55.5% of those taking part in the survey rated this interaction to be from 3 to 5.

Only around 50% (49.9%) of the participants reckon the interaction between their organisation and mass media outlets as average or above average (from 3 to 5).

7.4% and 7.7% of the participants indicated a complete absence of interaction between their organisations and authority structures and mass media outlets respectively. Interaction with other NGOs (apart from resource centers) is also a good indicator. 48% see it as above average and only 12% deny its existence completely. However, when asked to name what organisations they interact with on projects, events etc., nine times out of ten, they name either a branch of their own organisation or a foreign NGO. Such a state of affairs is not specific to the Belarusian CSO sector, but rather it is specific to the whole CSO sector of all former-USSR countries. There is an extremely low level of interaction between Belarusian NGOs and foreign funds. Interaction with resource centres is also not very close, although in comparison with funds and the private (commercial) sector, it is average.

Interaction is complicated by the fact that in Belarus there are only 14 resource NGO centres, i.e. centres offering a variety of services to NGOs. For example, the NGO “United Way” undertakes legal consultation, consultation on fundraising including how to write up project proposals (a series of courses is being conducted on this), on NGO management and marketing; grants access to computer-based technologies and the internet, use of its library; provides NGOs with literature necessary for effective activity in the CSO sector in Belarus etc.

75% of the NGO representatives who took part in the survey evaluated the level of interaction between their organisation and foreign funds at 2 or less and 45.8% of them said that they do not interact with foreign funds at all. Despite this, Belarus benefits from the work of around 319 foreign funds supporting various fields of activity.

The situation with respect to Belarusian funds and business structures is a little better. 38.5% of the sample indicated that their organisation does not interact in any way with Belarusian funds and 37.5% of them indicated such an absence of interaction with businesses.

In conclusion, the closest areas of interaction that the NGO representatives sample indicated in this survey was that between NGOs and authority structures and between NGOs and mass media organisations.