Development of a methodology for evaluating projects of socially oriented non-profit organizations

Abstract

The article substantiates the need to develop issues of methodology for assessing projects of socially oriented non-profit organizations, such as: ambiguous understanding by the scientific and expert community of the importance and essence of assessing social projects, its place and role in the activities of socially oriented non-profit organizations; eclecticism of the existing methodological approaches in the Russian practice of assessing social projects; underdevelopment of technologies for evaluating projects of socially oriented non-profit organizations (SO NPOs) by the organizations themselves, donors and regional government bodies. Evaluation is defined as a well-grounded judgment about the merits and demerits of a social project with a conclusion about the degree of usefulness of this project based on the relevant criteria, indicators and indicators and differs in several types: by subjects of assessment, by objects of assessment, by terms of assessment. It is emphasized that within the framework of this article the author is interested in the following areas of assessment: evaluation of applications of NPOs prepared for various competitions; assessment of the activities of NPOs for the implementation of the project; assessment of the results and consequences of the implementation of the social project. It is noted that the standards for assessing the activities of SO NPOs are developed by regional government bodies, which also form registers of SO NPOs. It is emphasized that this activity – the replenishment of registers and the development of specialized standards – is carried out in the regions extremely unevenly and fragmentarily, that no more than 5 % of the total number of registered NPOs got into the registers. At the same time, the activity of advanced regions (Perm Territory, Sverdlovsk Region) is highlighted, which were able to creatively adapt the corresponding recommendations of federal state authorities and create a normal mechanism for distributing subsidies between NPOs – grantees.