Her two main objections were: political indifference, understood as giving up the vision of system change and as professionalization/bureaucratization, resulting from the necessity (will?) to constantly compete for grants for various projects. In summing up her argument A. Graff claims that, instead of a civil society, we have Non-Governmental Organizations in Poland.

This publication was responded to by Adam Bodnar, Ph.D., Secretary of the Board of Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and Jacek Kucharczyk, Chairman of the Board of the Institute of Public Affairs. Below, we present the translation of their polemic published in “Gazeta Wyborcza”.

The thesis that instead of a civil society, we have Non-Governmental Organizations in Poland, is a firm statement. In our opinion, it is unfair and unjust to thousands of women and men, who take the work for social organisations their mission. They have been struggling for many years with lack of funds, overly complicated regulations (especially those concerning taxes), social indifferences and often negative attitude of politicians and the media. We are afraid that the Article by A. Graff, regardless of her good intentions, will make the public image of Non-Governmental Organizations worse and help reinforce the negative stereotypes concerning their workers.

Contrary to what A. Graff claims, we believe that the professionalization of Non-Governmental Organizations is one of the most important and positive things that happened to this sector. And it is in order not to be marginalised and to have influence on the reality – the debates, state policy, legislation or public opinion, that professionalism is required. Monitoring reports, lawsuits, carrying out researches, organising conferences and seminars, consistent influence on the decision process –  would not be possible without such attitude. Grass roots movements or spontaneous initiative may be good for organising a manifestation, picket or signature gathering campaign. However, it is better to do it professionally in order not to spoil the enthusiasm of the invited people (and there is still much to learn in this field).

Conducting several number of cases over years requires money, lawyers and taking actions in order to give them wide publicity. Also, preparing a sound and carefully analytical report on the condition of Polish democracy (published quickly enough to be up to date at the moment of publication) requires time involvement of experts and financial reward. Good will is not enough.

NGOs in Poland are increasingly becoming more professional. In this way, Poland is slowly catching up with the western world, where professionalism is something normal and obvious.

The most effective international non-governmental organisations, watchdogs (guard organisations) or think tanks (analytic centres) are large and affluent organisations employing specialists, experts in the fields of social communication and finance. They also attract numerous volunteers and trainees, for whom it is often the first step on the way to finding their place in the Third Sector, and often forming smaller organisations, or taking up other activities for the common benefit. Furthermore, there are many equally professional foundations, with the aim of supporting through financing of large and small initiatives.  It is enough to browse the internet site of American Civil Liberties or Brookings Institution to realise how huge and professional machines they are.
It is not our job to judge whether our organisations have both heart and soul. However, we are of the impression that if people working in NGOs lack these features, they would have moved to other sectors long ago, for example business. In the Third Sector, in order to survive and do what one considers important, they sometimes need to struggle a lot.

Not all organisations in Poland have appropriate reserve funds. Few of them have endowment funds, the income of which would ensure their survival during hard times and allow the realisation of their mission without concerns about grant competitions. The financial crisis does not improve the situation. Due to this fact we understand that in view of choice between dismissing people working in the sector for years, people who love and do their job well, or pursuing grants which do not concern their priorities (but match their mission), organisations sometimes have to choose the second option. Why? Because we are aware that in the case when a single worker moves to another sector it leads to a great loss which is hard to compensate for. It is not easy to find a replacement for a person who frequently gave evidence of their moral backbone and intuition when it comes to human rights or public affairs.

For every organisation survival is a difficult art of obtaining sponsorship and donations, which enables the realisation of goals and further operation (without going bankrupt every 2 or 3 years), or even development. Not only Non-Governmental Organisations are responsible for this state of affairs, but also sponsors (both private foundations and public sources) who do not assign a lot of money to so called institutional grants (which leave a large degree of freedom to the organisations), or to endowment funds.

Grants for specific purposes are accompanied by very complex expectations as to the supervision of expenses of the beneficiary, or reporting. At the same time, no one shows the will to cover the expenses of administering grants. According to some of the sponsors, an ideal worker of a Non-Governmental Organisation would be one that works for minimal wage or for free, but has the abilities and professional efficiency of a well-paid worker in a huge corporation.

When properly designed, a grant system leaves a large degree of freedom to the organisations.  Graff’s dilemma – to accomplish important goals or fight for grants – is false. To be awarded a grant, an organisation needs to specify these goals, but also have a clear idea for the methods of its realisation, convince the sponsor and finally prove that the goal has been realised. This requires not only heart and enthusiasm, but also professional abilities.

We also think that large and professional organisations – such as the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights or the Institute of Public Affairs – thanks to their organisational skills and professionalism, activate the environments in which they function. The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights for instance consists of many employees, graduates of various courses and trainings, pro bono workers, volunteers, interns, trainees and a large body of authorities.

Also, the Institute of Public Affairs has many experts and friends among its staff. Very often they also work at universities and thanks to the Institute they have a good research platform, as well as access to public opinion and they can shape social and political reality more effectively than scientists without such background. We do not complain about lack of human resources.

And here we face an issue which A. Graff fails to notice. There are two crucial problems when it comes to the place of Polish NGOs in democracy: quite a small number of large organisations – the flagships of the sectors – and the absence of any organisations on many fields of social life.

In Poland, there are only a few big, significant organisations that comprehensively deal with human rights or various aspects of public policy. Of course, there is a huge number of smaller, specialised organisations, but it would be better if the large ones were not few on the market of ideas and have some considerable competition. Thanks to that, the opinion-forming or guarding role of the Third Sector would be even more considerable. At times, there are so many events and topics, that even our organisations, which have a wide scope of activities, cannot keep up with them.

The second problem is the lack of strong organisations active in some fields. Who could professionally and without any ideological deviations deal with bioethics in Poland? Is there anyone dealing with monitoring of medicine or medical services market (and is not sponsored by pharmaceutical companies at the same time)? We may hope that such organisations will come into being. As usual, the lack of money becomes an obstacle. After all, money is available, but channelled mainly to charity organisations. Due to this fact, it is important to make the public aware that the activities of Non-Governmental Organisations are not limited to social welfare, but also include a whole range of affairs and fields of activities, that also deserve support, whether it means donating 1% of tax, other types of donations, or doing pro bono work for a particular organisation.

It is interesting and worth considering what the A. Graff says about the weakness of Polish civil society – according to her, the reason for that is it political indifference. A. Graff points out that the right-wing organisations and social movements have no restraints when it comes to defining themselves in terms of ideological or political categories (and that is why they are so successful in mobilising various social groups). We understand political indifference as maintaining necessary distance from political parties and being independent from the government. It does not mean that we resign from the influence on the policy of public authority, but we are trying to take independent and expert positions, which stem from values – also political ones, associated with the mission of our organisations. We are not alone. Polish NGOs almost always refer to some guiding ideas, such as open society, tolerance, anti-discrimination, human rights, social development or pro-Europeanism. It is a pluralised environment, which positively differentiates us from religious fundamentalists. At the same time, distance toward parties and politicians, as well as independence, allow effective social mobilisation and influencing the reality.

The role played by Non-Governmental Organisations between 2005 and 2007 may serve as an example. In collaboration with independent media and various professional environments, they effectively opposed the threats of political populism. Organisations such as Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and the Institute of Public Affairs published reports monitoring the policy of the government, arranged public debates and effectively made use of the media. If we were to define NGOs in terms of political categories, then we should do it in the context of favouring democratic values (pluralism, freedom of European integration), rather than any particular party or its program. An example of successful actions for the benefit of democracy was the famous initiative of NGOs coalition: “Change your country, vote”. As a result, thousands of young people decided to overcome their indifference towards politics and voted in the parliamentary election of October 2007.

Organising such an action was to a very large extent possible thanks to the existence of independent and professional organisations which enjoy the trust of various societies. Similarly, the initiative of introducing the parities on the registers of electors met with positive social response, mainly due to the fact that it was supported by people representing various social and political views. Organisations protecting women’s rights (which is undoubtedly fundamental for Polish democracy) may come to a conclusion, that they should build wide coalitions and search for support outside the traditional environment of female organisations.

There are many more people with passion who decide to work in the third sector. If we are to dream about the development of civil society in Poland, we need to think of a way to increase the number of reliable professional organisations – and to make them deal with matters that are important for  public life, without forgetting their mission.

Adam Bodnar, Ph.D., Secretary of the Board of Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights
Jacek Kucharczyk, Ph.D., Chairman of the Board of the Institute of Public Affairs