President Putin orders the allocation of 4.5 billion roubles to NGOs

Moscow, 06.04.2016

Four contests for presidential grants are planned for 2016, with nine operators distributing funds between non-profit organisations. Three organisations will be acting as grant operators for the first time.

President Putin has ordered the allocation of 4,589,914,800 roubles from the federal budget to NGOs implementing projects which are socially significant or protect human rights and freedoms. The presidential decree has been published on the official Russian internet portal for legal information.

In line with the president’s order, by 16 December 2016 four grant contests will have taken place. Nine operators will distribute the grants. As last year, they will include the NGO Civil Dignity (which will distribute 500 million roubles), the Union of Russian Women (400 million roubles), the Russian Pensioners’ Union (450 million roubles), the National Charitable Foundation (640 million roubles), the Russian Youth Union (600 million roubles), and the National Health League (450 million roubles). The non-profit Institute for Socio-Economic and Political Research and the Russian Society ‘Knowledge’ will not distribute funds this year.

The first presidential grants will be distributed by the charity for families, maternity and childhood Pokrov (which will allocate 420 million roubles), the Russian Union of Rectors (649.9 million roubles) and the Perspective Foundation which supports civic activity in small cities and rural areas (480 million roubles).

Pokrov will distribute grants for advisory, methodological and educational support of projects working in socially significant spheres, promoting NGO best practice, improving workforce mobility and developing public oversight mechanisms.

The Russian Union of Rectors will support educational and outreach projects, projects designed to promote the development of distance education, the preservation of historical heritage, the study and promotion of Russian language and literature, and research and monitoring the state of civil society.

The Perspective Foundation will support projects focused on the development of civil society institutions in small cities and towns, local history projects, projects linked to the preservation of cultural traditions, projects focused on career guidance for young people, the development of dialogue between the authorities and society and the development of local government institutions.

All grant operators will be required to develop a procedure for evaluating the social impact of the projects chosen to receive presidential grants.

In 2015 three presidential grant contests were held. Seven grant operators distributed 4.2 billion roubles to NGOs. The first contest took place in July (636 projects received support), the second in October (389 projects were given grants), and the third in December, resulting in 382 projects receiving funding.

Author: Georgii Ivanushkin

http://www.asi.org.ru/news/123010/