Public reporting of NGO’s is a guarantee of the organization’s reliability

The Ministry of the Republic of Karelia of national policy, relations with public and religious associations held an information and methodological seminar “Write report easily” for non –profit organizations on June, 22 in 2017.

At the meeting the participants discussed the questions of the annual public reporting of non – profit organizations (NGO): why it is so necessarily, in what ways it can be and what opportunities are opened for NGOs.

Annually each NGO faces a number of mandatory reports –to the tax service, to the bodies of justice, to the pension fund, etc.

So why should NGOs make their reports public? What is it –a waste of time or new horizons?

Public reporting is a very important aspect of the every NGO’s activity. It is kind of “quality mark” which allows to solve several important tasks. These tasks are, first of all, gaining trust among the target groups of the organization, partners and the population as whole; the opportunity to attract new like- minded people, as well as funding organizations.

The willingness to reveal information about activities and finance is a necessary indicator of professionalism, confirming the honesty of NGOs.

In 2017 the Ministry of the Republic of Karelia of national policy, relations with public and religious associations in order to assist NGOs in ensuring transparency and popularization of their activities established a Competition of annual public reports of socially – oriented NGOs which are realizing projects in the spheres of interethnic and interdenominational relations.

The competition starts in October in 2017. The main provisions of the competition can be found in the attached presentation, for more details see the Regulations of the Competition: http://nationalkom.karelia.ru/dejatel-nost/vzaimodejstvie-s-nekommerches... (Order from April, 12 2017 №67)

During the seminar, Nikolai Oskin, the general director of the Karelian resource Center of non- governmental organizations presented his experience of public reporting to the participants, whose organization for more that a decade has represented the results of the activities to the public. For instance, in 2012 the Karelian resource Center was awarded a bronze quality standard for its report on the results of participation in the All- Russian NGO’s public annual Reports “Starting Point”.

The annual reports are posted on the organization’s website in the “Documents” section under the link: http://www.nko-karelia.info/о-центре-документы.html.

What is more, within the framework of the event the specialists of the Autonomous non –profit organization “Center for the promotion of territories” presented information about the possibilities of the site “Non – profit organizations of the Republic of Karelia”- how to register (http://nko-karelia.ru/nko/register) and how to create an NPO page, post information about the NPO’s activity including an annual public report, use the “Project Designer”.

Moreover, the site monthly conducted a mini –opinion polls. For today, the second mini-opinion poll about interethnic and inter-confessional relations has been opened. To participate in the mini –poll which will take no more than a minute, follow the link: http://nko-karelia.ru/poll.