Civil society baseline study 2011

CONDITIONS IN CIVIL S OCIETY ORGANIZATIONS (CSOs) Serbia, 2011 Republic of Serbia GOVERNMENT Office for Cooperation with Civil Society

This survey is made possible by the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the “Civil Society Advocacy Initiative” program, implemented by the Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC) . Attitudes and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of ISC, USAID or the United States Government. Th e survey was conducted by Civic Initiatives with support from the Office for Cooperation with Civil Society of the Government of Serbia Republic of Serbia GOVERNMENT Office for Cooperation with Civil Society

Survey Methodology

Main Information and Working Conditions

Primary activity area: % CSOs that specified the given area as primary Civil society organizations whose primary areas of activities are social services, culture/media/recreation and environment al protection account for more than 60% of registered CSOs

CSO locations by geographic region The majority of CSOs are located i n Vojvodin a (37%) and Belgrade (30%), while the remaining CSOs are r elatively equally spread out across West, Central, East and Southeast Serbia

Founding year of associations (according to data given by associations) The majority of CSOs , 52%, were established after 2000, 18% between 1990 and 2000, a nd 30% before 1990 ( these primarily include CSOs providing social services, professional associations and CSOs engaged in environmental issues

Number of active persons in an organization ( managing board, staff & associates ) The number of active persons in CSOs ranges from 5 (29%) – 10 (36%) persons, while every fourth has up to 20 active persons and every tenth CSO has over 20 active persons

Number of volunteers in CSO Number of volunteers significantly varies, both between the areas of activities and within : 28% CSOs do not have volunteers at all, while 7% have over 100 volunteers Minimum=0 Maximum=60000

Total budget size of CSOs in 2010 ( in Euros ) based on data provided by CSOs The budget size available to CSOs in 2010 varies more between individual CSOs than between main areas they address. The majority of CSOs in 2010 had a budget less than € 20,000, while every tenth had over € 100,000

% of computers and laptops as compared to the number of active persons in CSOs On average , 30% of CSOs do not have either a computer or a laptop, and in the majority of cases one computer/laptop is shared among a larger number of workers

Do you have access to Internet in your organization? One third of CSOs do not have access to Internet, which is in line with the finding s that one third of CSOs do not have a computer/laptop in their organizations

How often is Internet used for your organization’s activities, regardless whether from home, organization or another place ? The majority of CSOs use Internet daily for work-related activities; however this often occurs at a place outside the organization (78% uses the Internet for their day-to-day work, while 67% have access to Internet )

Internet is mainly used for communication (e-mail) and information What do you use Internet for in your organization ?

Mission, Fields of Activity and Activities

Does your organization have a defined organization’s mission in writing and does it have a strategic plan? The majority of CSOs have the organization’s mission in writing, while, on average, less than half of them have a strategic plan

Multiple answers What type of activities are mainly conducted in your organization? On average, dominant types of activities in the CSO sector involve educational activities and local level actions

What types of activities are mainly conducted in your organization? Types of the most frequent activities vary considerably, depending on the primary field of activity

On average, the percentage of approved projects as compared to the number of submitted projects was reduced in 2011 compared to 2010 Base : CSOs submitting projects (73% in 2010 and 67% in 2011 ) Ratio between number of submitted and approved projects in 2010 and 2011

Legal / Fiscal Regulations

Are you familiar with legal regulations referring to CSO (Civil Society Organizations) sector? About one half of CSOs are not familiar or only partially familiar with legal regulations imposed on Civil Society Organizations

Multiple answers What are you dissatisfied with, what do you think should be changed regarding legal regulations? Regarding legal regulations, the main dissatisfaction in the civic sector relates to the tax policy imposed on CSOs

Political Context

In your opinion, is the present political climate in the country favourable for development of the CSO sector? More than 40% of CSOs rate the political climate in the country as unfavourable for the development of the CSO sector

How would you evaluate cooperation of the present Government of the Republic of Serbia with the CSO sector? ( Marks range between 1 and 5 ) Cooperation between the Government of Serbia and CSOs was evaluated on average to be 3 on a scale of 1-5 (45%), while only 23% had a favorable remark

To what extent does the CSO sector have an impact on the State policy creation? The majority of CSOs evaluate d the overall impact of the sector on the State ’s policy creation as insufficient/too little (64%)

Cooperation Between Sectors CSO Cooperation Networking

Have you so far, in any way, cooperated with other Civil Society Organizations? The majority of CSOs have cooperated with other CSOs

The majority of CSOs have cooperated with other CSOs from their municipality (75%) an d /or region in Serbia; however, as the territorial distance between CSOs increases, cooperation is diminishes Have you cooperated on projects with other CSOs from ...

Base : Organizations that have cooperated with other Civil Society Organizations (88% of the target population ) To what extent are you satisfied with to date cooperation of your organization with other CSOs? - Marks range from 1 to 5, like at school The majority of CSOs are satisfied with their cooperation with other CSOs

Cooperation with the State

How would you evaluate the attitude of the State towards the CSO sector? Attitude of the State towards the CSO sector is often evaluated as lack of interest (40%), but the same percentage believes that the State has a positive attitude towards CSOs, either by supporting their development (22%), or even by recognizing CSOs as partners (19%)

In what way has that attitude changed in the past 3 years? The majority of CSOs evaluate that the attitude of the State towards CSOs has not changed in the past 3 years; however, among those who believe that there were changes a larger percentage evaluates that it was more for better (28%) than for worse (12%)

B ase : Total targeted population How would you generally evaluate cooperation between the State and the CSO sector in Serbia? – Marks range from 1 to 5, like at school The majority of CSOs gives a median mark for cooperation between the State and CSOs, and as many as 28% give a low mark – this is considerably worse than the mark given for cooperation with local self-governments, which was given a high mark by one half of CSOs

Please specify THREE priorities that the newly-formed Office of the Government of the Republic of Serbia for Cooperation with Civil Society should focus on. The majority of CSOs, 70%, specified as the priority of the newly-established Office for Cooperation with CSOs the improvement of legal, strategic and financial framework and CSOs working environment

Cooperation with the Business Sector

B ase : Total target population Have you cooperated with the business sector so far? The majority of CSOs , 63%, have cooperated with the business sector

Multiple answers ; Ba se : Organiza tions that cooperated with the business sector (63% o f the target popula tion ) What types of cooperation have you had with the business sector up to now ? There have been mainly only two types of cooperation between CSOs and the business sector : In 80% of cooperation cases the business sector played the role of a donor, while in 23% it was about consulting services provided by CSOs

Ba se : Total target population How would you generally evaluate cooperation between the business sector and the CSO sector in Serbia? – Marks range from 1 to 5, like at school Almost one half of CSOs gives a median mark for cooperation with the business sector , while 37% give this cooperation low marks

Cooperation with Media

Base : Total target population Have you had any type of cooperation or contact with media up to now ? Only 1 0% of CSOs did not cooperate or have contacts with media

Ba se : Organizations that had any type of cooperation or contact with media (90% o f the target popula tion ) Did you cooperate more easily with local or with major national media? The majority of CSOs (64%) more easily cooperated with local media, while every fourth CSO did it with the national media

Base: Total target population How would you evaluate the general attitude of media towards the CSO sector (considering information about CSOs presented to the public)? The majority of CSOs at least partially trust the media: 41% believe that attitude of the majority of media is positive, while 31% believe that there are as many media with negative as with positive attitude

Base: Total target population How would you generally evaluate cooperation between media and the CSO sector in Serbia? – Marks range from 1 to 5, like at school 40% of CSOs give cooperation with media high marks, only 13% give it low marks

Attitude of the Public Towards CSOs

Base: Total target population How would you evaluate the attitude of the environment in which you work towards the CSO sector as a whole? – Marks range from 1 to 5, like at school The attitude of the environment in which they work towards the CSO sector as a whole is mainly given a median mark (46%) ; however, there are considerably more positive (39%) than negative marks (15%)

Base: Total target population Has the attitude of the environment in which you work changed towards CSOs in the past 3 years ? Close to 60% of CSOs evaluate that in the past 3 years the attitude of the environment towards the CSO sector has not changed, while 34% believe that it has changed for better

Does your organization have a strategy for public relations ? 60% of CSOs do not have a public relations strategy

Financial Stability – Source of Financing

Please specify percentual share of the financing method of your organization in 2011 On average, the largest percentual share originates from financing based on projects (31%) and membership (23%), while the smallest originates from institutional support (13%) ; however, variations between different areas are big

What is the percentual share of each financing source of your organization in 2011? On average, the largest percentual share originates from self- f inancing (41%), financing by local administration (20%) and financing by international donors (12%)

How would you evaluate the present financial situation of your organization ? – Marks range from 1 to 5, like at school 45% of CSOs evaluate the financial situation of their organizations as poor, and only 1 7% as good

Have you provided funds for the work of your organization in 2011 ? Only 37% of CSOs have provided for working funds for the entire 2011, while every fifth has not provided funds at all ( according to data from June 2011)

Base: Total target population Have you provided funds for the work of your organization in 2012 ? 76% of CSOs have not provided working funds for 2012 ( according to data from June 2011)

The Most Important Problems Regarding CSO Sustainability

In your opinion, how important are the following problems for sustainability of the CSO sector in Serbia ? % answers “important” ( very important + important ) The majority of CSOs agreed that all of the specified problems are important for CSO sustainability, but the greatest importance is given to the support by the State and to relations with donors and local authorities , while the least importance is given to cooperation with media and attitudes of the environment and citizens

Now, please, rank the same problems by priorities for your organization , regardless of the general conditions in the CSO sector Lack of support by the State is the most often specified priority problem for one’s organization Priority problem (rank 1 )

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Civil society baseline study 2011

by ISCSerbia on Oct 27, 2011

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