30 March 2007
Think-Tanks' Sustainability - Models of Overhead Expenses Calculation and their Effective Use
Institute for Public Policy, Bucharest, Romania
Violeta
Alexandru
http://www.ipp.ro
A survey conducted by Institute for Public Policy, Bucharest, Romania
The topic of think tanks’ self-sustainability is less a theoretical seminars’ issue than a serious, concerning matter of development for many NGOs in this region. The decrease of several American foundations' support and even its withdrawal in some regions, especially in recent EU member states (2004/2007 waves), raised a number of questions about the future developments of think-tanks in general. The more critical an NGO's approach to the Government has been, the more difficult it has become for it to engage partnership with governmentally managed resources. Still, the future of think-tanks is an important element for democracy's development from now on, and therefore the study on how overhead costs are raised and on the use of overheads for strengthening the internal capacity of the organisation, proves as a useful indicator for the sector’s sustainability in the new political and economic environment.
It was in this context that the Institute for Public Policy (IPP) conducted a research between January and February 2007. Based on preparing a questionnaire that was distributed among all PASOS members, IPP Romania aimed at collecting information about models of overhead expenses (indirect costs) and their effective use for sustainability of think tanks - members of PASOS network, under a service agreement from Open Society Institute (OSI) Budapest/Think Tank Fund.
The core purpose of this research is to provide a share of knowledge on best practice in raising/using overhead resources for strengthening think tanks worldwide.
The questionnaire targeted a series of financial management related aspects, such as:
- the level of overhead raised by the NGO in the previous year
- type of agreements in which organizations usually include overhead
- the distribution of funds generated from overhead raising among organization’s needs etc.