May 31, 2024

The BEARR Trust invites representatives of civil society organizations from Eastern Europe, Central Asia and South Caucasus to participate in an Annual Survey.

This survey intends to analyse the challenges and needs of Civil Society Organisations in the region. It includes 26 questions and should take no more than 20 minutes to fill in. All answers will be kept anonymous. Only aggregated data will be shared on the BEARR Trust website.

To find out more about our previous surveys, check this page.

Preliminary findings from our 2024 survey:

The results show some clear trends:

• 76% of respondents report an increase in the need for their services over the past 2 years (compared to our 2020 survey, which assessed the impact of COVID, only 59% reported an increase, but in the 2021 survey a similar figure of 77% was recorded);
• 74% of respondents report an increase in the number of clients seeking psychological assistance;
• 67% of respondents assess their organisation’s capacity to deal with psychological trauma among their clients and volunteers/staff as being at a medium or high level;  
• 50% of respondents are reporting burnout among their volunteers and staff (compared to the 2021 survey when 31% % reported burnout);
• Reliance on international assistance – over 70% respondents report this as the main source of funding (as in previous years);
• Partnerships with other CSOs are considered important (by over 80%) but there is a very low level of cooperation with local businesses (25%);
• CSOs are growing in size (44%) or staying the same (41%);
• 44% of respondents say it is harder to attract new volunteers (in all countries). 

By category of beneficiary, this was the distribution of CSOs who responded:

Among CSOs responding, over 50% had been operating for ten years or more, with the largest proportions of “young” CSOs in Turkmenistan (over 50%), Armenia, Georgia and Tajikistan (under 50%).

By size of organisation, the distribution was as follows:

Organisational structure

67% responded that most of their staff and volunteers were women, while 27% said they were men and women in equal numbers. Approximately equal numbers said their organisation had grown since 2022 (44%), or had stayed the same size (42%), while 11% said they had decreased in size. 44% said it had become harder to recruit volunteers, while 17% said it was now easier and 28% recorded no change.

Finance

Over 90% said funding remains a problem, and 40% said their staff need training in fundraising. Main sources of funding broke down as follows: 72% from international sources, 7% from state sources, 7% from individual donors in the state, 4% from business.

Attitudes

57% said attitudes to CSOs in society had improved in recent years, while 18% said they had deteriorated. As for attitudes among the governing authorities, 42% said this had improved, while 25% said that they were more suspicious of CSOs and viewed them negatively. 

(These findings will merit further breakdown by country.)