Nonprofitist.org

A recent comment to my previous post by abenamer made me realize that the words “international nonprofit organization” or “international NGO” might mean different things to different people. He wrote:

I tend to define international NGOs in a developed world/undeveloped world relationship. I tend to think of it as the facilitation of resources from the West elsewhere. I guess that’s my hangup.

His words reminded me that associating the concept of international NGO/nonprofit with the concept of global voluntary/charity/humanitarian/development organization is pretty commonplace for everybody I talked to about the subject.

Since this blog focuses on international nonprofits, I think it’s worth clarifying the issue, once and for all.

What do others say?

Wikipedia produces a quite general definition:

An international nongovernmental organization (INGO) is a voluntary association of organizations or individuals for worldwide or regional action.

However, a simple Google query for “what is an international NGO?” confirms the aforementioned preconception: in fact, the source Google refers to as the only definition on the web of international NGO (gotta work on that definition search engine Google!) describes it as

an organization that has an international headquarters and branches in major world regions, often with the purpose of undertaking development assistance

Fortunately, two main relevant classification systems help us in sorting this thing through.

The first one, developed by the Union of International Associations (UIA), is certainly complex and is complemented by extensive documented research on the subject. Although it highlights some interesting aspects of the issue, it concludes that:

A clear and unambiguous theoretically acceptable definition of international NGOs remains to be formulated.

The second one is called the International Classification of Non-Profit Organizations (ICNPO) and is produced as an annex to the International Standard Industrial Classification by the United Nations Statistics Division. The classification deals with international non-profit organizations as a separate category on its own (ICNPO group n. 10).

Interestingly enough, in none of the two systems the bias towards the voluntary/charity/humanitarian/development definition can be traced back to. My best explanation is that the exposure, size and influence of that kind of international organizations make most people associate them with the words “international nonprofit” or “international NGO” even if they’re not the only kind.

What do I say?

INTERNATIONAL AS AN INDEPENDENT DIMENSION

More than a section or a category (as in ICNPO’s classification), more than a separate kind of organization, I think that being international or not is just an aspect (you could call it geographical scope) of a nonprofit, just as much as the scope of its activities, finances, membership and so on. I really believe that the geographical scope is to a certain extent independent from other elements in a nonprofit organization and not, as many people tend to think, dependent on the type of activities (development/humanitarian/etc.) that the organization is carrying out. For example, imagine a local nonprofit organization that specializes in safeguarding local gastronomical traditions and a healthy lifestyle; imagine now the same organization, at global level… well, guess what, it really exists! And it doesn’t need to be about helping people in third world countries!

My point is that there are many (but not all) types of local/national nonprofits that can work at regional/global level as well, with the necessary adjustments. And just as there are nonprofit concepts that can work locally/nationally only, there are concepts that can work on a regional/global scale only too (e.g. a language exchange kind of nonprofit would not work really well if participants share the same language).

INTERNATIONAL OR TRANSNATIONAL?

The other important distinction I’d like to make is that perhaps the word “transnational” fits more into what I have in mind than the word “international”. Wikipedia explains

Very careful distinctions are now being made between international or multinational relationships - between and among nation-states or agents thereof - and transnational relationships between and among individuals and other entities, regardless of nation-state boundaries.
Internationalism refers to global co-operation between nation states, and points to the affairs between nation-state governments, while transnationalism refers to global co-operation between people, and points to activities, which transcends national boundaries and in which nation-state governments do not play the most important or even a significant role.

And according to the the words of and former UIA director Anthony Judge

The term “transnational association networks”, was chosen in order to provoke comment on the adequacy of the current term “international nongovernmental organization”. “International” is not applicable to many INGOs; and the current increasing use of “transnational” seems more appropriate. “Association”‘ is used because international “organization”, in the literature and in practice, is nearly always associated implicitly with IGOs.
“Networks” is added in the plural because most bodies are embedded in several inter-organizational networks — this is usually ignored and INGOs are analyzed as isolated entities. The properties of the network and the nature of an organization’s involvement in it, may be more significant than that of the sum of the “isolated” entities or an aggregation of their transactions.
“Nongovernmental” is dropped because there are many mixed, “intersect”, organizations particularly in the developing and socialist countries — also in some cultures “non-” may mean something very close to “anti- “. To define ” X” as “nongovernmental” is a plain confession of inability to conceptuaIize ” X ” and in practice means that ” X” can only be conceived of in relation to government — and, in practice, as the “hand-maiden”, of government. For this reason, at the national level, terms with a positive connotation are mainly used as appropriate (e.g. “voluntary”, “professional”, etc.)

And I quite agree with him on that.

MY OWN CRITERIA

As far as this blog is concerned, the distinction for-profit/non-profit has bigger relevance than any other aspect, hence the title. However, starting up a governmental nonprofit organization has certainly different implications than the ones I experienced in my short nonprofit career. Also, I haven’t had any experience on local nonprofits. What I’m focusing on is therefore all international organizations founded and rooted in the civil society.

For the benefit of clarity, these are the three criteria that define what I mean from now on with “international nonprofit” or “international NGO”, or any equivalent using the word “transnational” instead:

1. the organization is born to address a common problem or to seize a certain opportunity, at either worldwide or regional level (with a minimum of 3 countries, as reported in the two classification systems presented above)
2. the organization is non-profit
3. the organization originates from civil society, not being therefore affiliated with government or intergovernmental institutions, as in the most common definition of “non-governmental”

Anything other than that is material for a different, new blog… so feel free to fill the market gap!