FINANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN GROWING NONPROFIT ORGANISATIONS

Abstract

Nonprofit organisations play an essential role in society: their activities range from various forms of traditional charity to working on 'self-care' schemes in local communities, from advocacy to recreation to fine-tuning education, from supporting those in need to educating for self-reliance. The various forms of civic self-care and community organising help to build capacity for action and autonomous solutions, strengthen local communities and, thus, their role in social networks and integration. Their more targeted attention can complement state solidarity or draw attention to target groups or problems that have - at a given moment - escaped the attention of the state institutions.

NGOs have some specific characteristics, which result in the need for a specific toolkit in aspects of their everyday finance and comprehensive accountability. The following are the results of Hungarian nonprofit research, which examined the organisational growth aspects of Hungarian youth-related nonprofit organisations. Based on the analysis of 277 organisations, the results have been collected to introduce how the organisations handle finance and accountability in the different growth stages. As we can learn later, the development of these areas can become critical to the organisation to the extent that it recognises that this is important to mission fulfilment. However, at different stages of the growth phase, this means becoming more aware and professional.

As a result, if we can first identify the growth stage of a nonprofit organisation, developing the toolkit within the focus of the current growth stage can support the organisation's prudent operation and long-term sustainability.