The Netherlands: Civil society looses its mettle

“When the government starts cutting back, a lot of NGOs will be quiet because they are afraid of loosing their money”. Rutger van den Dool, spokesperson for Dutch NGO XminusY Solidarity Fund, highlights the compromise that non profit organizations dependent on government funding have to make to stay afloat in times of crisis. The small organization he works for doesn’t have this problem as they are funded solely by individual, private donors. Based in Amsterdam and run by 6 part time workers and around 40 volunteers, its mission is to support organizations that don’t find support from others because they are viewed as too radical, or on the edge of what is considered politically acceptable, like many of the anti-global, pro-environment protest groups demonstrating at the climate talks in Copenhagen last December. the The NGO was founded more than 40 years ago to reduce the gap between the world’s rich and poor; today, it supports 150 to 200 projects worldwide, 10% of which in Holland, 10% in the rest of Europe.

What is the climate like among Dutch NGOs after the elections?

The two big right wing parties that have won the elections are busy forming the coalition government but they have already said that they are going to cut back spending on development, aid and NGOs in general and that this will be one of the main ways they want to reduce the cost of the government. So everyone is curious and a bit afraid about what might happen; usually it takes about two or three months to form a coalition here in Holland, so they are all waiting to see what will happen.

Has the economic crisis already started affecting the Dutch non profit sector?

The coalition we had until this year, Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, who are meant to be a little bit left wing, or so you’d think, also cut government NGO funding and a lot of people were fired because the NGOs had no money. I have also heard that people are donating less money, partly because unemployment has increased and partly because they simply don’t have as much money as they did a couple of years ago.

How about XminusY?

We haven’t suffered particularly from the economic crisis, over the past six years we have had a decline in donations but I don’t think this is because of the crisis but because of some mistakes we made ourselves. We are now launching a big campaign to get more donors in and that’s going quite well. We are funded only by individuals, we don’t take any government money or money from corporations so that we can be completely politically independent, say what we want and support who we want.

What are the main challenges facing XminusY over the next few years?

The biggest challenge is to get enough donors in to be able to carry on doing what we have been doing over the past year. The other challenge is to increase our visibility within Holland. We do a lot of good work, we support a lot of projects but we lack visibility. We should take a place in the public debate, especially seeing as there is a high likelyhood the government will be a right wing government, there is a big opportunity for us to speak out in public.

Does the economic downturn offer any opportunities?

When the government starts cutting back, a lot of NGOs will be quiet because they are afraid of loosing their money but we are not in their situation as the government cut won’t affect us; so I think its a big opportunity for us to be heard, but also a big responsibility.