Grant Programs as Tools for the Third Sector Development

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the timely challenge of understanding how implementing long-term grant competitions organised by non-governmental founds develops the Russian third sector. The focus of the investigation moved from the direct results of grants implementation to indirect influences on third sector infrastructure. On the one hand, the third sector cannot be effective under strict official government regulation. On the other hand, spontaneous development of this sector which is oriented only to grassroots activities and market demand, decreases its effectiveness. Our investigation is based on materials of implementation of concourse “Active generation”, which is provided by regional NGOs by support from Elena and Gennady Timchenko Foundation 2011—2019. The empirical base is formed by investigating a comprehensive range of sources such as statistical reports of grant receivers, semi-structured interviews with regional operators, internet survey of organisations-applicants and face-to-face interviews with beneficiaries of the projects. According to our findings, a long-term grant programme which is implemented by partnerships between regional resource centres creates new social networks between all participants of this concourse and strengthens not only work with the oldest generation but also increased intensity of other social services. At the same time, the effective development of the third sector infrastructure depends on the synergy between all stakeholders such as official bodies, NGOs, social services and clients of social services. Due to the influence of the concourse, which is the outside factor for a particular region, all stakeholders can pull together for the realisation or split apart/compete and can create some barriers for development. Our research identifies the main vectors of interaction and formulates recommendations for their settlement.