State financial support of non-profit organisations as one of regional sustainable development foundations

. One of the important factors of the region's sustainable development is state financial support of socially orientated non-profit organisations (SONPO). For many years, government structures have been channelling significant funds to support non-profit organisations in order to develop civil society and solve social problems. With the increasing volume of government support and the diversity of relevant programmes at all levels - federal, regional, and municipal - there is a need to develop a methodology to assess the effectiveness of these programmes. This study analyses the volume, structure and features of state support to NCOs as a basis for sustainable development of the city of Moscow (Russian Federation).


Introduction
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all Member States of the United Nations in 2015, is a shared plan to ensure peace and prosperity for people and planet now and in the future.At its core are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call to action for all countries -developed and developing -in a global partnership.† In the period of the society rapid development there are questions related to the choice of an appropriate tool that would be able not only to provide a favourable environment for maintaining social life, but specifically to act as a growth driver, allowing to achieve new heights not only for a single region, but also for the state as a whole.In this study, the authors consider the thesis that government support of the non-profit sector can be an activity to achieve the goals of sustainable development of the region.
The importance of state support for SONPO should not be underestimated, because it creates conditions for the development of the non-profit sector, which contributes to the strengthening of civil society.Thanks to grant competitions and state subsidies, SONPOs have the opportunity to expand their activities, attract more volunteers and donors, and sometimes even influence important public decisions.
The purpose of the study is to assess the impact of public financial support as one of the foundations of sustainable development of the region on the example of the city of Moscow in the Russian Federation.The main objective of the study was to analyse the forms of state financial support of SONPO in the territory of the city of Moscow (Russia).
A large number of scientific works are devoted to the issues of NCO activity as a subject of sustainable development in the region.Yi Lu, Yuhang Wang, Liuyue Zhang in their article emphasise the contribution of NCO to post-disaster relief in China [1].Eun-Seon Park, D.K. Yoon examined the role of NCO in disaster management and public administration in South Korea and Japan [2].Kazuhiro Harada, Muhammad Habib, Yumi Sakata, Ahmad Maryudi in their studies highlighted the features of sustainable maintenance of traditional forests in indigenous communities in Indonesia [3].Ghassan Elkahlout, Sansom Milton, Taha Yaseen, Elham Raweh conducted a study on the high impact of NCOs in providing humanitarian assistance to the people of Yemen during periods of armed conflicts [4].Divya Gupta, Sharachchandra Lele, Geetanjoy Sahu in their work highlighted the great contribution of nonprofit organisations in decentralised forest management in India [5].A team of French researchers Benita Pursch, Alexandra Tate, Helena Legido-Quigleycd, Natasha Howard conducted a qualitative study of NGO support for migrants affected by structural violence in northern France [6].Katherine Foo examined the role of NGOs in urban environmental governance in her article [7].Daniel Jordan Smith conducted a study of the impact of nonprofit organisations in the fight against corruption and AIDS in Nigeria [8].Hwanbo Park, Hanbyul Lee, Hye Seung Cho studied the experience of NCOs in implementing educational projects and their participation in educational development [9].Geerhardt Kornatowski in his paper analysed the impact of NCOs in Hong Kong on the welfare of homeless people [10].Chen Jia-nan in his research paper evaluated the contribution of environmental NCOs to environmental education in the People's Republic of China [11].Julia Morgan in her paper conducted a study on the impact of NCO services on youth in sub-Saharan Africa [12].Harinder Rai Singh, Serina Abdul Rahman studied the approaches of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to environmental education in biodiversity conservation [13].
The analysis of the impact of state financial support of non-profit organisations as an element of sustainable development of the region is carried out in Russia for the first time.

Materials and methods
The research used general scientific methods, including analysis and systematisation, as well as methods of statistical data analysis.
The data of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, the Federal State Statistics Service, the Moscow City Government, as well as statistical indicators of foundations providing financial support to the non-profit sector in the city of Moscow served as the information base for the research.

Results and discussion
Moscow is the only city in the Russian Federation and Eastern Europe that participates in the pilot project "Territorial Approach in Achieving the SDGs", aimed at creating a comprehensive system for assessing the long-term development of the city that complies with international standards and principles of sustainable development of the UN and OECD.Moscow, as the capital of Russia, is a centre for the development of the non-profit sector.The city has an adequate infrastructure that provides the best conditions for NCOs to function and stimulate their development.In this section we will review the main government programmes and initiatives aimed at supporting this sector.
Before proceeding to outline the main programmes and initiatives, it is useful to review the statistical data on the number of registered NCOs in the city of Moscow over the last ten years.Table 1 shows the dynamics of the number of NCO registrations in Moscow from 2012 to 2022.The table was compiled by the authors on the basis of the data of the Federal State Statistics Service The data presented in the table tell us about the rapid development of SONPO as a whole.The total volume of registered initiatives has exceeded 200% in ten years, which proves the growing interest in this sector.However, despite the significant growth in the number of nonprofit organisations, as the results of the research of the National Research University Higher School of Economics show "signs of any financial activity over the last 5 years (2016-2020) have less than a fifth of registered Moscow NCOs (16%), namely 5 thousand out of 30 thousand organisations.This means that the remaining 84% of NCOs did not participate (including the submission of applications) in Moscow and federal grant competitions and were not recipients of other forms of support from the Moscow City Government" [7].
The forms of state support for socially oriented non-profit organisations in Russia are established by the provisions of Article 31.1.of the Federal Law dated 12.01.1996N 7-FZ "On non-profit organisations" and include the following types of state support: financial, property, information, consulting, training of employees and volunteers, tax and fee exemptions, procurement of goods, works, services to meet state and municipal needs from SONPOs (Federal law from 12.01.1996N 7-FZ "About non-commercial organisations"/ConsultantPlus).In order to implement state support of SONPO on the territory of the region, it is necessary to adopt a law of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation and a regional programme of SONPO support.In recent years, one of the trends in the support of SONPO is the approval of complex mechanisms for the implementation of this task of socio-economic policy.In this sense, state programmes become the most significant complex mechanism and tool for supporting SONPO activities.State programmes of SONPO support, as a rule, include a significant part of the forms of SONPO support stipulated by the legislation -financial, property, information, consulting, organisational, purchase of SONPO products by the state, providing SONPO with tax benefits, etc. [8].In Moscow a regional law has been adopted, which expands the forms of interaction between public authorities and local self-government bodies with socially oriented non-profit organisations -the Law of the City of Moscow dated 12 July 2006 N 38 "On the interaction of public authorities of the city of Moscow with non-governmental non-profit organisations".
It should be especially noted that the authors believe that the state support of SONPOs is the basis for sustainable development of the region due to the peculiarities in the types of NCO activities.The conducted analysis allows us to identify the main directions of SONPO activities to achieve the SDGs in Russia.Table 2 presents the correlation of sustainable development goals and statutory goals of SONPOs that operate in Russia.The table was compiled by the authors based on a comparative analysis of the list of sustainable development goals established by the United Nations and the provisions of Article 31.1 of the Federal Law of 12.01.1996N 7-FZ "On Non-Profit Organisations", which establishes the types of SONPO activities.
The basis for sustainability in the activities of SONPO is financial support, therefore the authorities both with understanding and interest treat all the declared initiatives, having developed various grant competitions and programmes for subsidising the activities of NCOs. Figure 1 presents an analysis of the dynamics of financial support of NCOs by the state in Moscow and in Russia as a whole.Analysis of the data presented in Figure 1 allows us to conclude that the amount of cash receipts to support the non-profit sector in Moscow occupies the major share of the total NCO funding in Russia.This indicates that Moscow is the most active in developing its social and environmental programmes, contributing to the sustainable development of the region.This table is just a confirmation that Moscow plays an important role in the development of SONPO in Russia, by demonstrating its leadership, the region is able to launch the necessary mechanism to promote the development of the non-profit sector in other constituent entities of the Russian Federation, which will entail more advanced programmes that will affect the improvement of the quality of life in all regions.
Table 3 presents an analysis of data on the number of financial receipts for the most popular government programmes and grant competitions.The table was compiled by the authors based on the analysis of data from the Presidential Grants Fund, the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives, the Russian Culture Fund, Moscow Mayor's grant competitions for socially oriented non-profit organisations, and "Moscow is a Good City" grant competitions in 2021-2022.
Analysing the information on the volume of SONPO cash receipts in 2021-2022, the following conclusions can be drawn: 1.The total amount of state support has significantly increased from 4.654 to 6.938 billion rubles (more than 33%).This indicates that the state pays great attention to financing SONPO and sees them as playing a significant role in the development of the region.2. "Presidential Grants Fund" is the leader in supporting SONPO in the city of Moscow, the total amount of grants for two years was over 5.733 billion rubles.3. The indicator of the number of SONPOs participating in grant programmes also increased from 872 to 1110 winners (by 26%).This may indicate that government programmes are becoming more attractive to SONPO.The presented analysis of the volume of financial support of socially oriented non-profit organisations by the state allows us to conclude that the authorities are highly interested in solving social issues.
At the same time, it should be separately highlighted that the above argument that SONPO support is the basis for sustainable development of the region due to the peculiarities of NCO activities is confirmed by the analysis of applications for state support to NCOs that received funding within the framework of the key regional grant competition -Moscow Mayor's Grant Competition for socially oriented non-profit organisations (Figure 2) (Grants of the Mayor of Moscow for socially oriented non-profit organisations: The official website of the Mayor of Moscow).

Conclusion
Summarising the results of the study, the author's team made the following conclusions: 1. State financial support aims to finance socially significant NCO projects that meet the goals of sustainable development.2. Moscow has a developed infrastructure of state support for the activities of socially oriented non-profit organisations.3. The presented forms of state support to SONPO in Moscow include most of those provided for by the legislation.4. Despite the high volume of allocated funding, almost all forms of financial support of NCO activities in Moscow are provided for a short period of time (up to 1 year), which prevents full planning of SONPO activities for the long term.Thus, the infrastructure of state support for SONPO in Moscow is an integral part of their development.It provides NCOs with the necessary resources and tools to successfully fulfil their mission.It is important to continue to develop and improve this infrastructure in order to support the non-profit sector and contribute to solving social problems in Moscow and in Russia as a whole.

Fig. 1 .
Fig. 1.The volume of financing of the non-profit sector in Moscow and in Russia as a whole.The figure was compiled by the authors based on the analysis of data from the Federal State Statistics Service.

Table 1 .
Dynamics of the number of SONPO registrations in the city of Moscow in the period 2012-2022.

Table 2 .
Correlation of sustainable development goals and activities of socially oriented non-profit organisations

Table 3 .
Financial receipts of NCO in the city of Moscow under government programmes and grant competitions in 2021-2022.