Numbers
How many non-governmental organizations
are there in Poland?
Where are the
organisations most and least numerous?
Does the number of organizations
increase?
How old is an average organization?
Activities
What do the organizations
do?
What is the geographic range
in which the organizations conduct their activities?
Networking
Are the organizations part of unions
and federations?
Do the organizations
belong to international agreements and networks?
With what partners do the organizations most frequently
cooperate?
People
How many people work in the
non-governmental sector?
What share of organizations
have paid employees?
How many people are members of
organizations?
What share of organizations
cooperate with volunteers?
Money
What are the revenues of the
organizations?
Where does the
organizations’ money come from?
What share of
organizations conduct paid or business activities?
What share of organizations
have considerable assets or financial reserves at their
disposal?
How do the organizations
manage their finances?
How many organizations
applied for structural funds?
What share of
organizations benefited from the support of the structural
funds?
Do the
organizations know how to apply for structural funds?
What hinders the access of the
organizations to the structural funds?
Needs and problems
What do the organizations
need?
Which are the most common problems of
the organizations?
What is the feeling among the
organizations?
HOW MANY NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS ARE THERE IN
POLAND?
At the end of the third quarter of 2006 the REGON register
listed:
• 55 016 associations
• 8 212 foundations
Voivodeships in which the number of registered NGOs in relation to
the number of inhabitants is the highest are: Mazowieckie (19
organizations per 10,000 inhabitants), Pomorskie (18), Lubuskie
(17), Warmińsko-Mazurskie (16) and Dolnośląskie (16), while the
lowest number of registered organizations (in relation to the
number inhabitants) is found in the voivodeships of Świętokrzyskie
(11), Opolskie (12), Śląskie (13),
Kujawsko-Pomorskie (13) and Lubelskie (13). According to data from
REGON, nearly 19% of all NGOs registered in Poland are located in
rural areas (11,170), whereas 69% are based in cities and
towns.
The number of newly established organizations has remained stable
for years. Each year, on average, slightly above 4,000 associations
and about 500 foundations are established. One should not, however,
conclude from this that the Polish non-governmental sector is
“expanding” by the year with this same number of organizations,
since each year a certain number of organizations end their
activity (which is usually not reflected in the REGON register).
• More or less every third NGO in Poland is no more than 4 years
old (created between 2002 and 2005).
• About 20% were created in 1999-2001
• Every third organization is more than more than 10 years old, out
of which 13% of organizations existed as early as before
1989.
Most NGOs in Poland work in the area of “sports, tourism,
recreation and hobby” (39.2% of organizations indicate this as
their most important field of activity). Other areas of activities
most frequently indicated by the organizations as their main fields
of activity are: “culture and arts” (12.8% of organizations),
“education and upbringing” (10.3% of organizations) as well as
“social services and social aid” (9.9% of organizations) and
“health protection” (8%).
• 1 in 3 organizations claim that they carry out activities in the
immediate neighbourhood.
• More than half of organizations (54%) declare the area of their
activities coincides with the area of their commune/district
(gmina/powiat).
• 28% of organizations declare their activities are conducted
nationwide.
• 34% of organizations are members of different kinds of branch,
regional or nationwide federations, agreements and unions.
• Organizations that do not belong to any kind of union or
structure are increasingly sceptical of these – merely 16% of
organizations (9% less than 2 years ago) would like to belong to
such a structure, while 34% simply claim they do not want to join
them (13% more than in 2004). 15% have no definite opinion on this
issue.
• The percentage of organizations that declare membership of
foreign or international agreements has remained virtually
unchanged during the last 2 years – in 2006 it came to 10%.
• Similarly to the case of national structures, neither foreign nor
international networks and agreements seem so attractive to the
organizations any more – only 25% claim they would want to join
them (in 2004 the share was 39%), while 42.6% do not see such a
need.
• About 120,000 people are employed in the non-governmental sector
in Poland.
• Expressed in full-time jobs this gives 65,000 jobs. Organizations
are the main workplace for about 75-80,000 people (irrespective of
the type of contract).
• In 2006, 26% of organizations had paid staff (irrespective of the
type of contract); This is 7% less than in 2004.
• 19.4% of associations and foundations have permanent employees
(which means more or less 65% of people receiving remuneration for
work in the organizations are permanently employed).
According to two sources of data – a study on NGOs and a survey on
a representative sample of adult Poles – the total number of
members of organizations in Poland in 2004 may be estimated at
about 7-7.5 million. A comparison of data from research conducted
in 2006 with data from 2004 enables us to see a decrease in the
membership base in Polish associations in the last 2 years.
• In 2006, half of associations had no more than 36 members (10
less than in 2002, and 6 less than in 2004).
• Every fourth association has more than 70 members (in 2004 every
fourth organization had more than 90, and in 2002 more than 100
members).
In 2006, 40% of organizations declared their activities are
supported by volunteers (who are not members). The total number of
volunteers may be assessed at about 600-700,000 people. This mean
that, in the last years, the number of volunteers in the
non-governmental sector has gradually decreased – in 2004, 45% of
NGOs declared they benefited from the work of volunteers and in
2002, 47%, while their number was estimated at between 850,000 and
1 million people.
In 2005, the revenues of half of the organizations did not exceed
10,000 zloty. This is 3,000 less than in 2003 (and 9,000 less than
in 2001).
• Every tenth NGO (10%) did not have any revenues in 2005, while
more or less 1 in 5 organizations (20.4%) had revenues that did not
exceed 1,000 zloty at their disposal.
• A similar percentage of organizations (19.3%) had a budget larger
than 100,000 zloty at their disposal, from which every fifth (4% of
all organizations) declared revenues exceeding 1 million zloty.
Sources of financing from which the largest percentage of
organizations benefited in 2005 are: membership fees (59.5%), local
government sources (43.3%) and government sources (19.3%),
donations from private individuals (35.5%) as well as donations
from institutions and firms (34.5%). The largest part of financial
resources in the non-governmental sector comes from national,
public sources (local government and government) – almost 35%. This
is about 5% more than in 2003 and is caused by the increase in the
scale of funding from the public administration. During the last 2
years, the share of financial resources from the central
administration has increased from 13% to 22% of the total revenues
of the sector, parallel to a decrease in the share of resources
from the local administrations (from 16.5% to 13.5%).
• In 2006, 14.7% of organizations declared they conduct paid,
non-profit activities, while in 2004, when this possibility was a
novelty (the possibility to conduct such activities was introduced
by the Public Benefit and Volunteer Work Act, passed in mid-2003)
only a few% of the organizations did it (about 4%).
• Somewhat more than 8% of organizations declared they conducted
business activity. This means that during the last 2 years, the
percentage share of organizations that conducted such activities
has decreased by half (in 2004 they were 16%).
In the same way as two years ago, 76% of organizations claim they
have virtually no financial reserves.
• Those organizations that do, have enough for 9 months on average,
assuming their activities are not interrupted, while half of these
organizations have reserves that would last less than 6
months.
• 8 in 10 organizations (81%) claim they have no significant
assets. This is considerably more than in 2004 when 71% of
organizations indicated this answer.
• Only 3.2% of organizations generated revenues from assets in 2005
(e.g. letting premises, equipment, property rights etc.).
• 81% of organizations keep a bank account, 9% keep their financial
resources exclusively in cash. The remaining 10% did not have
revenues at all in 2005.
• 9% of organizations placed their money in fixed-term deposit
account.
• In 2005, 14.4% of organizations generated revenues from bank
interests, profits from nest eggs, stocks and shares, which in
total made up 2% of the sector’s revenues altogether.
In the last two years, 9% of organizations have applied for
structural funds.
2/3 of the organizations that submitted their applications for
structural funds until mid-2006 had previously (in the last 4
years) applied for EU support funds.
The significance of the structural funds for the entire
non-governmental sector has so far been small. During 2 years (from
mid-2004 to mid-2006), only about 3% of all organizations – that is
about 30% of the organizations that applied – received subsidies
from these sources.
In 2006, the organizations assessed their knowledge about the
structural funds somewhat better than they had done two years
earlier, even though the percentage of those who believed it was
not completely satisfactory had not changed (similarly to 2004,
only about 20% declared this), nor had the percentage of those who
had not at all heard about the possibility of receiving such funds
(about 7%). However, the percentage of organizations that, although
assessing their knowledge as insufficient, claim they know “a
little” has increased – in 2006 these made up 52.7% of
organizations, whereas in 2004 only 40%.
The contrast between the data concerning the most important areas
of activities of the organizations, their potential as well as the
prevailing organizational culture in the sector on the one hand,
and the stiff procedures and principles of applying for the
structural funds on the other, leads us to the obvious conclusion
that not all organizations can be treated as potential applicants.
A simulation prepared by the Association for the Forum of
Non-Governmental Initiatives, based on data from research, shows
that at most 25% of all active organizations (12,500 entities)
presently fulfil the boundary conditions for applying for
structural funds. When asked about what hinders them from
benefiting from EU funds, the organizations most frequently
indicated issues related to finances:
- 72% selected a lack of the required own contribution,
- 69.7% mentioned the necessity of providing financial guarantees.
Other problems that make it more difficult to benefit from EU funds
are related to weaknesses of the organizations themselves –
insufficient experience or potential of the organizations as well
as problems resulting from the complicated application
procedures.
DO THE ORGANIZATIONS INTEND TO APPLY FOR STRUCTURAL FUNDS IN
THE FUTURE?
Despite many discernable problems, 53.7% of organizations declared
a will to apply for EU funds in the future.
• Similarly to previous years, the organizations have most frequent
contact with the representatives of the local community in which
they work (about 85% of organizations).
• Local governments on commune and district level rank particularly
high on the list of partners – 63% of organizations have frequent
contact or contact from time to time, while another 16% sporadic
contact.
• Public institutions such as schools, hospitals or museums are the
other important partner. Contact is almost as frequent with these
as in the case of local governments – 77% of organizations have
such contact, from which every second (almost 40% of all
organizations) have frequent and regular contact.
• Interestingly, nearly 50% of organizations declare they cooperate
with the local media, every third have contact from time to time
and about 16% have frequent and regular contact.
• Other NGOs – seemingly natural partners of the activities of the
organizations – appear somewhat more rarely as partners than public
institutions and local media. Every third organization claims it
has no contact at all with other organizations.
• If one hypothetically asks the organizations on what they would
spend additional money, it turns out they would definitely most
frequently use them to purchase equipment.
• Definitely more rarely in relation to the data from 2004, the
organizations would be prone to spend additional resources to
extend their offer of services, instead they would rather use the
additional money to raise the skills of employees and volunteers,
and to employ or use the services of specialists (in law,
management, accountancy, finances, etc.).
• Bad financial situation and difficulties in raising funds are the
problem most frequently indicated by the organizations, discernable
in their everyday work (mentioned by 73% of organizations).
• The second most frequently indicated problem turns out to be a
lack of people willing to work altruistically for the organization
(declared by 56% of organizations). In 2006, the organizations
were, in addition, asked about problems related to the discernable
shortage in human resources – every third organization has problems
with their leaders being burnt out.
• More than 45% believe next year will be better (two years ago,
51% of respondents were of the same opinion). The optimists are
four times more numerous than the pessimists – only 10% of
organizations believe the year 2007 will be worse than previous
years.
16.7% of organizations consider the conditions of their work in the
last year to be worse than in previous years (two years ago 23% of
organizations thought so).
• 23.5% of organizations believe the last year was better for the
organizations than previous years.
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