Using Non-profit Organizations to Reduce Regional Variation in Environmental Quality[Роль Некоммерческих Организаций В Сближении Экологических Характеристик Территорий]

When environmental quality is poor and also varies widely between individual regions, new ways of addressing environmental problems are needed with special emphasis on reducing differing impact that these problems have on individual territories. Involving the third (non-profit non-governmental) sector more directly may be a means to that end. This study outlines environmental projects that have been initiated and implemented by non-profit organizations in the Russian Federation and assesses their success in reducing regional variation. Data was analyzed from 5,853 projects submitted from 2017 to 2023 in competitions for Presidential Grants related to the environment. Indicators from the Federal State Statistics Service and Rosprirodnadzor were also employed. Content analysis of project applications relied upon descriptive statistics methods and calculation of correlation coefficients. The environmental projects that were submitted as well as those that won exhibited a high degree of differentiation by specific topics and regions. In addition, there has been debate over the past two years among some grant applicants and fund experts about the importance of certain environmental problems. Waste management projects developed by non-profit organizations often do not take into account the relative urgency of solving such problems for a given location and are largely guided by prior experience and expertise. The experts do consider the relative value of projects (although not to its full extent) for a territory along with the experience of grant applicants and the region itself. As a result, the projects implemented contribute very little to reducing the differences in environmental quality among the country’s regions. There is also path dependence that can have both positive and negative consequences. The article provides recommendations for changing how the authorities and the officials at the Presidential Grants Fund work with non-profit organizations.