According to the NGOs Sustainability Index Report 2007, by USaid, in Poland there are about 63,200 registered non profit organizations, of which 55,000 are associations and 8,200 are foundations.
The research “Condition of the Non-Governmental Sector in Poland 2006” conducted by the KLON JAWOR’s association, the first NGO in Poland when it comes to providing updated information about the state of the non profit sector, considers that the Polish civil society organisations is made up also of:
– 15,000 fire brigades;
– 3,703 grassroots organizations (parent-teacher associations, hunt clubs and public committees);
– 18,523 trade unions;
– 15,474 units of the Catholic Church, other churches and religious associations;
– 5,459 economic and professional self-governing organizations, and other smaller groups of employers’ organizations and political parties.
Therefore, if all these organisations are considered, the Polish civil society would amount to more than 120,000 organisations.
In 2006, with the act on social cooperatives (Spòldzielnie spoleczne) a new type of business model was born. Modelled on their Italian counterparts, social cooperatives aim at matching business activities with the work integration of their members, that are jobless and/or disabled persons. Until mid 2007, over 100 such organisations were established. Cooperative is a business model that has strong roots in the Polish civil society as reveals the MOSE research, a project that aims at developing a European training model for social managers. The number of active co-operatives in Poland is around 12,000 the vast majority are housing co-operatives (5,000), agriculture cooperatives (2,500) and work cooperatives (1,300).
The Polish Non profit sector is composed of a large percentage of young organizations, most of them based in big cities. The average life span of a non profit organisation is 11 years, but half of the organizations are no more than 6 or 7 years old, reveals the KLON JAWOR’s research conducted in 2004.
On the ground, the majority of civil society organisations are in towns (70%) and only 20% in rural areas.
Source of income
The research “Condition of the Non-Governmental Sector in Poland 2006” reveals that the financial sources used in 2005 by the largest percentage of the organizations are: member fees (60% of the organizations), regional sources (43%), donations from private individuals (35.5%) and donations from institutions and firms (34.5%).
