Growing a Democracy

“[D]emocracy, as it is understood by millions of Russian citizens, consists precisely of a society that does not allow itself to be manipulated, [of] a people having the right to express their opinions and through peaceful, legal paths to protect their interests and the interests of the country, if those in power cannot manage to do so.”

–Open Letter to World War II Veterans and Moscow Residents, from the Organizing Committee of the All-Russian Antiwar Movement

Thursday evening strollers along Moscow’s Tverskaya Street this summer found themselves part of an unexpected piece of street theater. Standing beneath the statue of Russia’s best loved poet on Pushkin Square, 40 people with banners were holding their weekly protest vigil.

“You should be ashamed!” yelled an elderly woman to one of the protestors, gesturing at the statue of Pushkin.  “And in the presence of such a great man, too!”

Off to the right of the statue, a display of color photographs showed bombed out villages in the wartorn region of Chechnya. One of the protestors held up a single sheet of paper. “Forgive me,” read the paper. “I’m guilty of not stopping the war.”

The weekly demonstrations on Pushkin Square were organized by the All-Russian Antiwar Movement, an umbrella group including human rights movement Memorial, the Committee of Soldiers Mothers, and the Anti-Fascist Youth Movement. What is unique about the Antiwar Movement is its leadership: a loose and ever-changing coalition of representatives from Moscow’s nascent non-profit community.

Times are increasingly tough for Russia’s non-profit community. Western funding and technical assistance are being phased out. In the private sector, few Russian businesses are willing or able to engage in long-term commitments to charity. And Russia’s non-profit organizations are just one of the groups competing for limited public-sector resources.

Additionally, many non-profit groups have now reached the stage where good intentions are not enough to carry them forward. Particularly in Russia’s provinces, NGOs often rely on local political authorities for everything from office space to administrative support. According to consultant Alexei Kuzmin, who works with non-profit organizations throughout Russia, “The weak point of these organizations is that very often there is nobody on staff who understands management.”

Furthermore, informed observers have long complained that clashing personalities and political affiliations within Moscow’s non-profit community have kept these organizations from forming seemingly natural alliances around ideas, programs, and lobbying activities.

“We’ve always been so critical of one another,” sighed a prominent member of the Moscow non-profit community recently. “We really need to develop respect for one another’s work.”

A Tradition of Service

Prior to 1917, Russia boasted a proud tradition of public and private financing for charity: public schools, hospitals, almshouses, and other services were provided by charitable institutions administered by local governments. In Moscow, wealthy donors such as the Tretyakov, Morozov, and Bakhrushin families contributed millions of rubles to public charities. After the Revolution, however, private fortunes vanished, independent organizations disappeared, and charitable activities were quickly absorbed by the Soviet government.

“Seventy years ago, Russian charitable activities were absolutely comparable to those going on in the West,” contends Galina Bodrenkova, director of Moscow Charity House, which got its start in 1991 by delivering Western aid packages to needy individuals. “But then we lost 70 years.”

Under socialism, the State took on all social security functions, providing at least a subsistence minimum for the disadvantaged, a free health care system and housing for all, albeit basic and overcrowded. This seemingly removed the need for charity organizations.

But the impersonal and often cruel State machine usually did more harm than good — notably ruining the health of millions in the camps. Charity remained on a smaller scale, withdrawing to work collectives and families. The needy and unfortunate sought support from friends and relatives, who gave generously when the State was unable to help.

But in an increasingly individualistic society, the breakdown of many of these small, informal networks has made non-profit organizations necessary once again.

Today’s independent, non-profit organizations in Russia grew out of two distinct and largely opposing traditions. The first was the Soviet dissident movement, where the feeling of solidarity in the face of adversity was strongest of all and rejection of the Soviet government in all its manifestations most categorical.

The second, much broader tradition, was a nominally independent movement of state-sponsored Soviet organizations devoted to everything from international peace to women’s rights. During perestroika, some of these quasi-official organizations attained a measure of real independence, making them some of the most experienced (and best-connected) players on the current scene.

In the five years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, independent, not-for-profit organizations have mushroomed. Although the numbers fluctuate, observers place the total number at between 40,000 and 50,000, a figure that includes everything from universities and research institutes to charitable and social service organizations run on a shoestring out of someone’s apartment.

What is a typical Russian non-profit organization in 1996?

“I work most closely with organizations affiliated with health care,” says Donna Barry, an American project administrator who monitors U.S.-funded grants to Russian-American non-profit partnerships. “These organizations provide modern, up-to-date services that the Russian state does not or cannot provide, especially in areas such as alcohol abuse treatment and prevention, women’s health, and family planning.”

However, “business got an earlier start in Russia and businesspeople are more experienced at what they do” than their non-profit counterparts, says Alexei Kuzmin, whose company, Process Consulting, helps both business and non-profit clients resolve issues of organizational development. “Non-profits employ people whose skills lie elsewhere, whose calling is not to make money. I think that’s real democracy, when you as a professional have the opportunity to fulfill your own potential.”

Seeds of Change

Cash infusions from the West have made the services of consultants like Alexei Kuzmin affordable. Responding to a Russian government request for technical assistance, U.S. taxpayers spent some $2.3 billion to support business and non-profit activities in Russia through the end of 1995. Although the single-year U.S. aid budget for Russia reached $1.3 billion in 1994, by 1996 U.S. spending in Russia had fallen to around $100 million, less than 20% of which supports social service and charitable non-profit activities. Among the caveats attached to U.S. funding are requirements that they be spent on infrastructure rather than direct services.

American aid dollars have supported Russian projects ranging from public education to mental health support services. For example, in the Moscow Region, the Dubna Educational Center received a $500,000 U.S. grant to develop models for alcohol treatment in a rural setting.

Nationally, American funds currently enable the Socio-Ecological Union’s network of NGOs to improve communications and coordination among environmental groups in the former USSR. The project supports programs like ‘green’ newspapers in Nizhny Novgorod and Krasnoyarsk, and is overseen by an American partner organization, in this case ISAR (formerly the Institute on Soviet-American Relations).

Donna Barry calls such partnerships “one of the best methods and mechanisms for aid.” A recent independent analysis, Aid to the Former Soviet Union: When Less is More, cited several projects administered by Barry’s employer, World Learning, Inc., as examples of highly successful U.S.-Russian partnerships, calling them “one part of the U.S. assistance program that had high impact at low cost.”

At the same time, the report found that these partnerships are “precisely the kinds of projects whose funding is now being disproportionately reduced and that face the greatest danger of becoming marginalized or eliminated.”

Since U.S. funding was always envisioned as short term, many partnership and other grants awarded to Russian non-profits required grantees to provide matching funds and demonstrate project sustainability once U.S. funding was withdrawn. Donna Barry cites a joint U.S.-Russian YMCA project whose U.S. government funding ended in July 1995. A year on, the program — continues to function on funds raised by the Russian and American parent organizations.

Moscow Charity House’s Galina Bodrenkova credits American partner organizations, particularly the Points of Light Foundation, with making all the difference in her organization’s success.

“Our problems are exactly the same,” says Bodrenkova, comparing charitable activities in the United States and Russia. “And ordinary people organize themselves the same way all over the world. Of course, here we have to adapt our methods to Russian conditions.”

Growing Pains

Moscow Charity House’s methods have enjoyed an enviable degree of success. Since 1991, it has helped over 250,000 people through eight programs, several in partnership with American organizations. The new offices in one of Moscow’s most prestigious highrises were a gift from Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov.  “He’s probably already regretting it,” laughs Bodrenkova.  “These offices could generate a lot of income for the city.”

Bodrenkova attributes Moscow Charity House’s success to a policy of openness, backed up with exhaustive documentation. “Every day I know exactly where things are,” she says of her tracking system. She is particularly proud of having delivered 415,000 individual foreign aid parcels to needy recipients in the chaotic early 1990s, a time when aid parcels to Russia often ‘disappeared’ somewhere in transit.

Despite considerable success early on, Moscow Charity House is now having to change with the times. From providing direct services, such as a French-funded daily ‘meals on wheels’ program for 11,000 elderly Muscovites, it has switched to organizing and training service providers through its network of more than 50 neighborhood-based social service agencies and organizations.

Galina Bodrenkova would be the last person to call the transition easy. From the heady days of a 30-strong staff administering large-scale, foreign-funded programs, it has shrunk to a mere handful. Although the Moscow government was supposed to take over a U.S.-funded paratransport program for disabled residents, no city funds appeared.

Lack of recognition by the authorities is just one of the problems faced by Russia’s non-profit organizations. Public understanding of their activities is also limited. A series of financial scandals involving supposedly ‘charitable’ organizations in the early 1990s severely damaged public perceptions of the movement.

Even the Russian mafia does not quite know what to make of the non-profit sector. One non-profit director reported that the day after her organization received a foreign-funded grant, several men in dark suits showed up to demand a cut. “I tried to explain the idea of a charitable organization,” recalls the director. “I must have been successful, because they never came back.”

Perhaps the greatest hindrance to developing a robust non-profit sector is Russia’s failure to devise funding mechanisms and a tax system to support non-profit activities. Even Moscow has only recently begun providing limited funding and attention to them. And Moscow is, as usual, well ahead of the rest of Russia.

Forging Ahead

One organization not waiting around for financial reform is the Human Soul Foundation (Dusha Cheloveka). One of the first Russian NGOs to address the needs of the mentally disabled, the Foundation introduced innovative ideas not only in treatment for mental illness (the Foundation advocates a ‘clubhouse’ model of care that is community-based and self-governing), but in non-profit development and financing. Before receiving a $400,000 U.S. partnership grant in 1994 (the American partner is New York’s Fountain House), the Foundation existed entirely on funds raised from Russia’s private sector.

In contrast to their Western counterparts, Russian business generally has been slow to support non-profit organizations. “Our businesspeople are just starting to think about their social responsibilities,” says Alexei Kuzmin, “and they do this primarily out of concern for their own employees and their families.”  Nevertheless, Kuzmin sees longterm business partnerships as one of the main revenue sources for Russian non-profit entities once the foreign aid dollars dry up.

Last December the Human Soul Foundation tested out that proposition, using business connections to stage a fundraiser at one of Moscow’s trendiest nightclubs, Bedniye Lyudi.

The purpose of the evening was to call attention to the problems of Russia’s mentally ill — an estimated 300,000 people in Moscow alone. Attendees at Human Soul’s ‘Schizophrenic Debut’ won door prizes ranging from donated theater tickets to wooden animals carved by a clubhouse member and purchased copies of stories and poems written by mentally disabled Muscovites.

Taking Stock

Although he places some hope in Russia’s developing private sector, Alexei Kuzmin believes that the immediate future of Russian NGOs lies in closer partnerships with municipalities, particularly in the remoter regions of Russia.

A case in point is one of Kuzmin’s clients, the Siberian city of Nefteyugansk. Alarmed by mounting evidence of social breakdown — including the fact that, in a city of 100,000, three to four teenagers were dying each week of drug overdoses — city officials asked Kuzmin to help organize a social service counseling center. Kuzmin’s firm worked with a team of approximately 30 experts to train clinic staff (mostly psychologists) in management, organizational planning, and providing services.

“Of course it’s not a grass roots movement,” says Kuzmin. “On the other hand, the local branches have excellent management experience, because they’re run by real administrators.”

Not surprisingly, greater dependence on local authorities is not an attractive proposition for many Russian non-profit organizations, particularly those active in non-traditional or politically sensitive issues. For example, gay and lesbian organizations in various regions of Russia continue to report harassment from local authorities.

Many NGOs experience conflicting impulses toward conformity and dissidence, the two major approaches of public advocates during the Soviet period. Nowhere is the conflict more pronounced than in Moscow. When Luzhkov recently moved to create a ‘charity council’ of administration officials and selected non-profit representatives, some in the non-profit community reacted with alarm. One group accused the authorities of playing favorites; others hinted that the mayor’s office was seeking to undermine a genuinely independent — and thus politically threatening — social movement.

The Road Ahead

As usual in Russia, it’s hard to know whether those doing the yelling have genuine grievances, or merely the loudest voices. But in a country where dissent still strikes many people as downright unpatriotic, the cacophony of raised voices is interpreted by some observers with cautious optimism. A Western diplomat with many years’ experience in Russia and the Soviet Union explains: “I like to think of all those tiny non-profit organizations out in the provinces tap, tap, tapping away at their e-mail, networking with one another. Every time independent Russian organizations communicate with one another, they’re breaking down the old ways of thinking that have for so many years stifled human creativity in this country.”

Galina Bodrenkova observes that many Russians are still trying to make up their minds about what constitutes a civil society. “Many people, especially the Communists, think we aren’t yet ready for such a civil society,” she says. “But I think that where people act for themselves to help others, that’s already a civil society, if only on a small scale.”