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Toward a Vital Voluntary
Sector II:
The
Challenge of Permanence - An Action Statement
Statement of the Johns Hopkins
International Philanthropy Fellows
Tallin, Estonia
1995
Preamble
The
remarkable upsurge of organized private voluntary
activity that has taken place over the past two decades
has opened new vistas for individuals to exercise
initiative in working together to pursue public purposes.
At
the same time, the thousands of private, nonprofit, or
voluntary organizations that have resulted from this
upsurge in the developed countries of North America,
Europe, and Asia, in the developing societies of Africa,
Asia, and Latin America, and in the former Soviet bloc
remain highly fragile. It is quite possible, therefore,
that the initial burst of energy that has gone into the
formation of these organizations will ultimately fail
unless steps are taken to institutionalize the
achievement and help ensure its longevity.
To
assist in this process, the sizable network of scholars,
practitioners, and experts in the field of philanthropy
and nonprofit action from around the world who comprise
the participants in the Johns Hopkins International
Philanthropy Fellows Program, or in its annual
conferences, produced a Statement of Principles in 1993
to guide the development of the voluntary sector at the
international level.
The
present statement is a sequel to this initial document.
Its purpose is to identify the steps that should be taken
to put these principles into effect and to ensure the
survival of a vibrant nonprofit sector in countries
around the world over the long run. The statement was
developed by participants in the Seventh Annual Johns
Hopkins International Philanthropy Fellows Conference in
Tallinn, Estonia, in June 1995. Over 50 nonprofit experts
from 25 countries took part in this session representing
all the continents and a broad range of nonprofit and
philanthropic institutions.
In
formulating this statement, we are cognizant that there
are many different types of voluntary organizations with
many different needs. Our intent here, therefore, is not
to identify all these needs, but to call attention to
those shared by a substantial proportion of the
organizations.
More
specifically, the undersigned have concluded that the
task of ensuring a viable nonprofit sector over the
long-run in countries around the world will require
action on at least the following five fronts:
I.
IMPROVING PUBLIC AWARENESS AND SUPPORT
1. An urgent need exists
to promote a positive public attitude toward voluntarism,
private giving, and citizen
action.
Widespread lack of awareness,
and at times some suspicion, exists about voluntarism and
nonprofit action in many parts of the world. This is due
to the limited information that is often available about
what this sector is and how it operates, and to
occasional misuses of voluntary organizations or
voluntary action. Overcoming such lack of awareness or
negative public attitudes must therefore be a high
priority for those concerned about the long-run future of
this set of organizations. To accomplish this, it will be
necessary not only to improve the base of knowledge, but
also to make it more broadly available through public
outreach efforts and the mass media.
II. GENERATING
FINANCIAL RESOURCES
2. In order to survive
over the long run the nonprofit sector needs a stream of
financial resources that is:
(a)
reasonably predictable and reliable; and
(b) sufficient to meet both the basic capital
and operating expenses of the sector's
organizations and to support the development of
appropriate programs.
3. This stream of
financial resources requires a climate of support that
encourages:
(a)
positive public attitudes towards the nonprofit sector;
(b)
a tradition and culture of giving;
(c)
a realization that everyone can give something and that
all gifts are welcome and
necessary;
(d)
a recognition that giving, volunteering, self-help,
mutual support and civic
participation strengthen the
overall society; and
(e)
a favorable legal framework to suppose nonprofit
organizations.
4. The development of
this stream of resources requires action on a number of
fronts, including
government, the for-profit sector, grantmaking
foundations, and
the nonprofit sector. We see
these actions as including the following:
(a) Government must provide:
i.
a legal basis for legitimizing nonprofits, including
legal recognition of nonprofit
organizations
in all their various forms;
ii.
tax incentives for nonprofits, including favorable
treatment of the income of
nonprofits
and tax deductibility of gifts made to nonprofits by
individual and
corporate
donors; and
iii. subsidies for the work of
nonprofits that is in the public interest. These
subsidies
may take various
forms, including: direct grants; purchase of service
contracts;
in-kind assistance;
set-asides of tax revenue, lottery proceeds, and
privatization
income.
(b)
Multi-governmental agencies will have to improve their
accessibility to nonprofit
organizations,
which will:
i.
require improved information; and
ii.
the ability to support nonprofit organizations directly
rather than only through
indigenous
governments.
(c) Nonprofit
Organizations themselves will have to take on a number of
responsibilities,
including:
i. educating individuals, prospective donors, and
volunteers about the value of
giving, self-help,
and volunteering;
ii. developing innovative ways for donors
to give and volunteer and to recognize
those who
do;
iii. boosting self-generated income
from such sources as fees for service, sales of
products, and
rental income;
iv. developing endowments and
effectively managing the investment income that
results, and
v. encouraging bequests.
(d) The
For-Profit Sector must not only prosper but also actively
support the not-for-profit
sector through: direct
corporate gifts; corporate challenge or matching gifts;
corporate in-kind
gifts; corporate encouragement of giving,
volunteering, and civic participation among
corporate employees. Corporations will have to
educate themselves and their employees about
the nonprofit sector, its challenges and
opportunities.
(e) Grant
Making Foundations, in addition to making direct grants,
will have to take special
interest in promoting the
long-term survival and capacity of the nonprofit sector,
including its
capacity to raise and manage financial resources. This
can include: the use of matching
gifts and challenge gifts; support for training and
technical assistance in fund-raising
and financial management; encouragement of the
creation of more grant making
foundations; and promotion of greater accessibility
and improved information about the resources
available to nonprofits from foundations.
III.
TRAINING AND ORGANIZATIONAL CAPACITY BUILDING
5. Education and
training support are crucial to the effective performance
and
long-run viability of voluntary
organizations.
Though
often informal and volunteer-based, nonprofit
organizations must be run effectively as organizations in order to achieve the high
quality results that the public and beneficiaries of these organizations have a right to
expect. This requires education and organizational
development.
6. Training must be
based on an assessment of local needs, and adapted to
local circumstances.
Although
some general principles of nonprofit management exist,
training needs to be adapted
to local circumstances and needs. The process
of identifying those needs must involve
groups at different levels and stages of
development, in different fields of activity, and
in different types of communities. Outside trainers
must therefore be fully briefed on the
local context and plan programs jointly with local
personnel. Training materials drawing
on local examples must be developed and made widely
available in local languages.
7. Training programs for
nonprofit activists must focus not only on technical
management skills but also
include attention to the skills required for civic
empowerment.
The
skills and abilities needed to operate nonprofit
organizations involve not only management
skills, but broader skills in community empowerment.
Nonprofit organizations
must connect effectively to the communities they seek to
serve and operate efficiently
as organizations.
8. Nonprofit training
must be participatory and empowering in character in line
with the basic
characteristics of the nonprofit sector itself.
Nonprofit
training should use a style that encourages
participation, helping people recognize
and share the skills and knowledge they already have
rather than restricting attention
to readymade blueprints drawn from other
experiences.
9. Training programs
need to develop the skills and capacities of indigenous
trainers.
Outside
trainers can be immensely helpful in imparting important
nonprofit management and
organizational skills. However,
training programs need to move to a position where most
training and
education can be planned and presented by local
personnel, calling on outside experts
as and when necessary. To develop this
capacity, local trainers need opportunities
to learn from experiences in other countries and regions.
Language training can
help to ensure that these opportunities are open to
a range of local trainers.
10. Resources are
essential to allow hard-pressed nonprofit managers to
benefit
from training.
Nonprofit
organizations are frequently staffed by volunteers who
rarely have the resources to participate in training activities. If
training opportunities are to be available to a broad enough range of
organizations and personnel, funders would be
well-advised to consider training a legitimate object for support.
11. Every effort should
be made to train nonprofit managers in concert with
government and business leaders.
Nonprofit
organizations do not operate in isolation. Rather, they
interact regularly with
government and
business leaders. Where possible, therefore, training
should be designed
to involve participants from these
other sectors as well so that mutual relationships can be
developed.
IV. SECTOR
SERVICE AND SUPPORT ORGANIZATIONS
12. To promote the
long-run viability of nonprofit organizations around the
world, a pressing
need exists for sector-wide support services and the
organizations that
provide them.
Individual
nonprofit organizations often lack the resources to
provide the general support
that is needed to sustain the nonprofit
sector over the long-run, such as training,
development,
public information, general advocacy for the sector, and
information-sharing.
What is more, it is often inefficient for each
agency to provide such services individually. The viability of
the sector will therefore depend critically on the establishment
of agencies equipped to provide the support services
that local nonprofit organizations
critically need.
13.Sector service
organizations can take a wide variety of forms: they can
be national or local; they can
include grantmakers as well as service
organizations; they can focus on
only one field or on a variety of fields; they
can
assist organizations focused on a particular clientele or
function or those focused on a variety of
clienteles or functions.
The
exact type of service organization that is appropriate
will vary from country to country and possibly from field to field. What is
important, however, is that it provide a set of
services
or supports needed by a number of different
nonprofit organizations.
14. The priority
services required of these types of organizations will
also vary by
region and over time, but certain
commonalities are apparent.
The
types of general support services needed by nonprofit
organizations are quite similar from
place to place even though the priorities among them may
vary greatly. Among the most
critical needs are:
(a)
general information about nonprofit organizations;
(b) training;
©
legal assistance and assistance with drafting nonprofit
laws;
(d)
fundraising assistance;
(e)
technical assistance;
(f)
communications and networking;
(g)
public education and promotion of voluntarism; and
(h)
research.
V. RESEARCH
15. Improved knowledge is
urgently needed about the nonprofit sector. Nonprofit organizations
are insufficiently understood in virtually all parts of
the world. To improve understanding
on the part of the general public and key decisionmakers
in both the public and
private sectors, a better base of knowledge must be built
about this sector. Such a base
of knowledge must include at least three kinds of topics:
(a)
the overall scale and structure of the nonprofit sector,
including its financial,
technological,
and human resources;
(b)
the internal dynamics of this sector, including the
motivations of key participants
and institutions;
and
(c)
the performance of the sector and its constituent
organizations in terms of their
efficiency
and effectiveness, and the quality of their activities.
16. Research on the
nonprofit sector can usefully take a variety of forms and
use a variety of
disciplines; but it must adhere to the same standards of
objectivity as
research in other
fields.
The
nonprofit field is still relatively new and is vulnerable
to a variety of ideological and political
pressures. It is therefore particularly important that
research in this field be solid and objective. At
the same time, a variety of disciplinary approaches, embodying a variety of
research techniques, are quite feasible and
desirable.
17. Serious
efforts are needed to increase the respectability of
objective research
on the nonprofit sector.
Because
of its relative novelty, research on the nonprofit sector
still commands too little
respect and
legitimacy in most parts of the world. To overcome this
and encourage research
in this field, special efforts will be needed. These
will include:
(a)
increased funding for research on the nonprofit sector;
(b)
improving linkages among researchers and research
institutions in this field
both domestically and
internationally through research conferences and other
means;
(c)
creation of research institutions in this field where
none exist;
(d)
education and training of potential nonprofit
researchers; and
(e)
outreach to personnel in mainstream disciplines who are
doing work that
relates
to nonprofit organizations.
18. The subjects of
nonprofit research should be directly and closely
involved in
defining the research
questions and participating in the research process so that research in this field can be empowering
to the maximum extent possible.
Those
involved in nonprofit research have a special obligation
to make sure that the
beneficiaries of
nonprofit organizations also benefit from nonprofit
research and help to define the
issues and methodologies employed.
19. Nonprofit research
must not only be conducted, but also be disseminated, to
help ensure its
effective use.
While
information on the nonprofit sector is important in its
own right, it also has a
practical value in improving
awareness of this sector and helping the sector to
operate more
effectively. To gain these added benefits, however,
it will be necessary to devote the same serious
effort to the dissemination of research as to its
initial conduct
Agreed
to this 22nd day of June, 1995, in Tallinn, Estonia
Original Signatories:
Argentina -
Elba Luna, GADIS
Australia -
Tony Myer, The Myer Foundation
Brazil -
Diva Moreira, President, Casa Dandara
Croatia -
Arpad Barath, Associate Professor, Medical
School, University of Zagreb
Vesna Matulic, Psychologist, Medical School,
University of Zagreb
Estonia -
Aili Aarelaid-Tart, Researcher, Institute of
Philosophy, Sociology and Law
Mare Aru, Tallinn Technical University
Development Fund
Tiiu Evert, Jaan Tônisson Institute
Tarmo Elvisto, Association Fenno-Ugria
Madis Habakuk, Estonian Business School
Rein Heinsalu, Project Manager, Hereditas Art
Centre
Mall Hellam, Executive Director, Open Estonia
Foundation
Margit Kabin, Jaan Tonisson Institute
Aldo Kals, Tartu Help Foundation for the Blind
Mall Kals, Tartu Help Foundation for the Blind
Ulo Kannelmae, ESKO Training Centre
Doris Kareva, General Secretary, UNESCO Estonian
Commission
Peeter Kohandi, U.S. Agency for International
Development
Rein Kuresoo, Chairman, Estonian Nature Fund
Valdur Lahtvee, Estonian Green Movement
Reet Laja, EENA
Tiit Lauk, Estonian Jazz Foundation
Sven Lindström, Estonian Private Doctors' Union
Lore Listra, Director, Estonia Institute
Tiina Loosaar, Ministry of Finance
Linnart Mäll, Unrepresented Nations and Peoples
Organisation
Helle Mäeltsemees, Estonian Cancer Foundation
Albert Norak, Open Charity Foundation
Tiia Nurmelaid, Estonian National Library
Kaja Peterson, Stockholm Environmental Institute
Irina Petrova, Member of the Board, Estonian
Union of Interpreteurs
Ljudmilla Priimagi, Estonian Association
"Anti-AIDS"
Mart Raud, Director, Institute of Humanities
Paul Raud, Estonian Choir Association
Arvo Raudsepp, Peipsi Region's Development
Foundation
Tiina Rebane, VAT Theatre
Marika Ritso, Finno-Ugric Grassroots Association
Nathan Roe, Representative, U.S. Peace Corps,
Estonia
Ingrid Rüütel, Association "Baltica"
Jüri Seilenthal, Estonian Students' Society
Mart Siilmann, Institute of Estonia
Toomas Talu, UNICEF Estonian National Committee
Rita Tamm, Estonian Foundation Center
Lemme Urb, Representative, The U.S. Baltic
Foundation Tallinn Office
Genadi Vaher, Estonian Foundation for the
Disabled
Ingrid Veinmann, Information Officer, Estonian
Foundation Centre
Ethiopia -
Aynalem Demeke Bandargew, Food for the Hungry
International/Ethiopia
Finland-
Paavo Hohti, Secretary General, Finnish Cultural
Foundation
France-
Charles Arnaud, President, OFJT & OEIL
Eric Kemp, Project Coordinator, European
Foundation Centre
Ghana -
Emmanuel Laryea, Executive Director, Mayday
Rural Project
India -
Pushpa Sundar, Gurgaon (Haryana)
Israel -
Ali Alasad, Legea Development Organization,
Beer-Sheva
Italy -
Ugo Ascoli, Professor of Sociology, University
of Ancona
Elena de Palma, Researcher, ISPES
Japan -
Takafumi Tanaka, Assistant Professor, Tokyo
Gakugei University
Kenya -
John Mulaa, Deputy Chief Editor, The Jomo
Kenyatta Foundation
Latvia-
Sanda Zvidra, Director, U.S. Baltic Foundation
Latvia
Lithuania-
Vilija Jankaitute, Director, U.S. Baltic
Foundation Lithuania
Mexico -
Rosa Maria Fernandez, Researcher, Mexican Center
for Philanthropy
Luz Paula Parra Rosales, Researcher, Academia
Mexicana Derechos Humanos
The Netherlands -
Tymen van der Ploeg, Professor dr., Vrjie
University, Law Faculty
Poland -
Darota Ilczuk, Chief/Cultural Economic Sector,
Institute of Culture, Warsaw University
Jurek Szmagalski, Assistant Professor, Faculty
of Pedagogics, Warsaw University
Leslaw Werpachowski, Executive Director, Cieszyn
Danuta Zagradzka, Editor, Warsaw Gazette
Romania -
Mihai Lisetchi, Regional Program Coordinator,
Pro Democracy Association
Russia -
Elena Abrosimova, Program Manager, Charities Aid
Foundation-Russia
Oleg Kazakov, Research Consultant, IPS/JHU
Dmitry Petrov, Acting Chairman, Student
Defense-Moscow Union
Slovenia -
Anica Mikus Kos, Director, Center for Children,
Adolescents, and Parents
United Kingdom -
Anna Bowman, Director, West Hampstead Housing
Association, LTD
Norman Johnson, Professor, University of
Portsmouth
Michael Langstaff, Senior Lecturer/Housing
Policy, University of Northumbria
Bob Ramdhanie, Birmingham City Council
Marilyn Taylor, Lecturer, University of Bristol
Roger Watkins, Charities Aid Foundation
United States
of America -
Ed Block, Peace Corps, Baltics
Dick Cook, Johns Hopkins Institute for
Policy Studies
Susan Mitchell, Johns Hopkins University
Suzanne Feurt, The Charles Stewart Mott
Foundation
Virginia Hodgkinson, Independent Sector
Michael O'Donohue, Peace Corps, Baltics
Ashley Owen, The U.S. Baltic Foundation
Delwin Roy, The Hitachi Foundation
Lester M. Salamon, Johns Hopkins University
Helen Seidler, Council on Foundations
Russy Sumariwalla, United Way International
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