Compiled by László Kákai

Nonprofit training in Hungary[1]

Nonprofit sector and higher education

On launching our empirical survey the primary concern was to investigate the qualifications the leading circle of the Hungarian nonprofit sector – directors of advisory boards, acting managers of associations- holds. When setting up our hypothesis we started from the fact that several years after the change of regime a procedure of professionalism has taken place in the nonprofit sector, as well. The flow of the highly qualified into this field proved to be its first evidence.[2]

Civilian organizations

The studies completed so far indicate substantial shortages in the qualifications/skills of the managers of non-governmental organisations and local governmental participants.

The necessary ‘elite’ has not yet emerged in the domestic non-profit sector, although of course there are leaders working in such organisations - primarily in organisations providing public services enjoying substantial state support - performing their tasks at high professional standards.

A large proportion of the managers of non-profit organisations have higher qualifications, such qualifications showing a rather heterogeneous composition, where qualifications in education and health make up the largest proportions

Comparing the results with the pattern of the degree types held by the heads of a city in the highest position reveals that the data are more evenly spread concerning the types of qualifications. The predominance of teacher- and kindergarten teacher trainings in the country is not present in the capital city. In Budapest the ratio of those who have legal or executive qualifications is higher and so is the rate of those leaders who are qualified in social sciences.

·    We depicted the fact that the majority of the respondants rejected the idea of a qualification offering a professional degree, whereas one third of them would take part in a correspondence training starting in the future.

·    It is worth taking an other viewpoint into consideration. Those intellectuals who hold an inset issued by the institutes are neither numerous nor presumably powerful enough in the structural hierarchy to fully influence the data. It is assumed that claim would be laid to a special education offering a separate degree provided these professional persons held leading positions.

We have found most necessary to explore the special expertise of the present leaders. When compiling our questionnaire, a framework of a possible nonprofit training’s subject structure was accomplished by our standards.We have listed sixteen courses,  subjects of which the respondants had to pick those they had attained during their  higher education or academic level training.

1. table What sciences did you study during your higher education or academical level training?*

-Percentage distribution-

*More than one answer is possible, thus they represent more than one hundred percentage altogether.

The chart shows that the informants’ special expertise proves to be incomplete. A most remarkable feature is that the majority of the top leaders of foundations and associations lacks even the basic legal and economic knowledge so important to leading a nonprofit organization.[3]

Hence the 84 percentage of the respondants lead their organization without economic and a further 72 percentage without legal knowledge.

Examining the special expertise of the top leaders of nonprofit organizations in Hungarian cities and Budapest it can be ascertained that they run the foundations and associations based on primarily general, social sciences.

Every third informant stated that they had attained communication studies, some sort of management acquirements, sociology and political studies. We consider it important that the psychological, sociopsychological studies additional to management acquirements which help communication with co-workers are among the most known domains. We get a less favourable picture if we take a look at the special professional knowledge of the sector, for it can be stated that nonpofit economy was studied by less than 10 percent, and nonprofit law by approximately 15 percent.

It is remarkable that nonprofit ethics as a subject can be registered only in case of 4 percent of the respondants. On outlining the problem we brought up the alternative that this lack of knowledge may have been compensated by a group of experts, i.e. lawyers and economists. On the other hand knowing the financial situation of the third sector in the country and the financial appreciation of experts the employment of the given group in the sector seems to be dubious.

In our survey we have stated that the top leaders of cities did not support launching a civilian training which would offer a separate degree in a higher education institute. The city leaders of nonprofit organizations support the secondary training most, this form was preferred by more than one third of them. The opinion of the top leaders in Budapest is slightly different, but has the same tendency, as recorded before. Despite of the fact that the nonprofit leaders in Budapest have some sort of degree in higher proportion, they basically reject the idea of a college or university level separate civilian education. Should this training form be launched, they would not participate or only in a low proportion. More than one quarter (27 percent) of the respondants does not find a civilian training with degree necessary, whereas a further 45 percent of them supports the secondary or tertiary vocational training. Thus the one fifth of the nonprofit leaders in the capital holds an opinion that there is no need for launching a separate nonprofit training in higher education institutes.

The following conclusions can be drawn from the data:

Ø A part of the respondants does not seem to realise the necessity of nonprofit training, for they do not sense the importance of this special extra knowledge during their daily activities, or rather they do not consider nonprofit training as a discipline.

Ø The majority of the informants may find –in addition to holding a general degree- a secondary, tertiary nonprofit vocational training sufficient to attain the special knowledge in a short period of time (6 months, 1 year) which saves expences and energy.

Ø Naturally human factors cannot be excluded from the reasons of this rejection, either. Leaders, who already hold high positions, inevitably would regard the young specialists with the latest expertise as rivals.

Ø The term- nonprofit training with a separate degree-itself used in the questionnaire might have caused difficulties to the respondants.

Higher education

Teaching staff opinions

As our starting-point it can be claimed that although nearly all the higher education institutes under examination offer nonprofit subjects – disregarding the depth and quality of it – we were surprised to experience that there were significant differences in the starting-point itself, i.e. defining the main notions.

The reasons of this phenomenon can mainly be sought in the lack of a scientific series of discussion upon how to define the most fundamental concepts and how to elaborate a consistent conceptual system. They have not been realized for more than 10 years since the change of regime.

The most outstanding difference among the respondants was the fact that while one part of them (the majority of them) made the difference between nonprofit sector and civilian society clear, there was a significant group of informants which had not done so.

It may be hypothesized that in this group the two notions are taken as synonyms, i.e. no major dictinction is assumed between the two definitions.It could be the focus of a new survey to find out whether this uniform approach in this group is a scientifically supported standpoint or it is simply based upon deficient knowledge.

A further feature of the interviewees who did not distinguish between the two basic notions is the fact that in their replies nearly all of them have focused on the nonprofit feature and have not striven to define the concept of the civilian society.[4] This brings us to the conclusion that they understand the nonprofit sphere as a wider phenomenon and they presumably interpret the civilian society within this set.

Nevertheless the majority of the interviewees – as we have already indicated – made difference between the two basic definitions, in divergent quality and approach, though. Several of them think that the clearing up of the concepts has not taken place in Hungary so far, but this conceptual fuzziness should be put an end to in the close future.

On the basis of the interview analyses we disclose only the most characteristic statements without revealing the identity of the interviewee. We consider the distinction and interpretation of the nonprofit and civilian society as one of the most significant considerations, therefore we find it important to present the opinion of the the teaching staff in leading positions.

2. table The different approaches of the civilian society and the nonprofit sector

Summarizing the chart it can be stated that whereas there are significant differences between the conceptual definitions of the nonprofit sector (organizations) and the civilian society (organizations), there is a significant motive in case of the majority of the interviewees which can later serve as a basis of a conceptual clearing –up. To be more precise, it is the fact that in their replies several respondants referred to the nonprofit feature’s organization, organizational background in the first place, while in case of civilian society they ignored this strucural institutionalization and put the emphasis on the self-organization and self-motivated activity.

On the other hand, we have to agree with the point-of view of one of the respondants, who- in spite of distinguishing between civilian society and nonprofit sphere- claimed the following:

"Naturally it would not be wise to deny the civilian roots of nonprofit, in addition this gives its sense. People bring along a lot of ’civilian features’ into the nonprofit sector. Therefore nonprofit is under civilian control. The main point is that there is an exceptionally close relation between civilian and nonprofit. Nonprofit originates in the civilian and so do parties."[5]

If we put the emphasis on the separate interpretations of the two concepts and focus our attention exclusively on the definition of nonprofit sector, it can be stated that almost each respondant –with one exception- pointed at its economic relation in the same way. In different wording, though, but all of them draw attention to the prohibition of profit distribution within the sector, i.e. they placed the nonprofit structure outside the market sphere. From this seemingly unified point- of- view in this field the conclusion can be drawn that the economic approach of the nonprofit sector has become established in the Hungarian scientific life.

While the respondants – as outlined above- sharply dissociated the nonprofit domain from the market sphere, they did not find such deep boundary from the state and local governments justified. That is to say, according to some interviewees nonprofit networks receiving significant financial support from the state and the local government are wide-spread and in some instances these institutions are the sole founders and maintainers of some organizations (e.g. public organizations).

With small differences the majority of the informants unanimously adopted the same point-of-view, though they are of the opinion that within the Hungarian higher education the standard of the education of nonprofit studies is unfinished and superficial, and there are very few institutions where teaching these studies are accepted at a required level. The informants, instructors specify different reasons, motives concerning this unified standpoint.

The following set of opinions presents the different motives point by point.[6]

·    Due to lack of solvent demand the state and the local governments do not finance trainings of this nature. Owing to the difficult financial situation of the training institutes (instructors are not adequately paid, the student norm is low) launching nonprofit trainings could not be realized even within the teaching bases.

·    At the moment the professional background is not avaible in Hungary in the interest of launching a training of this nature at high level. Several respondants emphasise that the instructors lack thorough grounding, they have been able to provide their own training by self-education for the time being, and a methodological centre of unified standards has not been established yet.[7]

"In certain institutes and majors it often occured that the instructor who had been prepared to lecture on something for the moment, gave a lecture. These lectures proved to be fairly eclectic and did not get compiled into unified syllabus or programme."

In addition to this, there is a conceptual fuzziness in the syllabuses, trainings are of ad hoc nature and only pieces of the factual knowledge can be taught on the already operating fora.

·    The next conception is similar to the above mentioned standpoint, nevertheless more considerate. It says that the trainings are of ad hoc nature indeed, and the syllabus is not systematic enough, but this is natural since it is a new field which has not produced its appropriate professional basis so far. The final conclusion of this standpoint is that the Hungarian higher educational system may not be ready to receive the nonprofit training yet.

·    After the change of regime there had been a large-scale boom of nonprofit organization formations which was followed by only a secondary and professional level training not providing a degree. The necessity of training new talents coming along with the development of the third sector escaped the attention of the teaching staff in higher education. "Consequently there has not been a resolute leader training for civilian organizations up to now."

·    The third sector is undervalued by parents, students and last but not least by society. In any case this fact hinders the fullfilment of education and the rise in its standard.

The students’ opinions

In accordance with our hypothesis the excessively differentiated concept-formation used by the instructors predestined the different replies given by the students. However, we did not expect that even the distinction between the two concepts had presented something of a problem to the students interviewed.

The chart show that nearly the half of those who receive faculty training, while more than three fifths of those who receive general training were not able or willing to interpret the formulation of the question. Approximately two fifths of the informants getting faculty training unambigously indicated that they observed difference between the concepts. We should like to mention that the students who are members of a nonprofit organization are more certain about their replies. Thus nearly six tenths of those who receive faculty training and hold one nonprofit membership and all of those who have two ore more memberships (16 persons) unanimously made a difference between civilian society and nonprofit sector.

Altogether 132 students were willing to define the concepts in their own words. The unintelligible and chaotic replies and their considerable amount made it impossible to find patterns in them. Consequently we considered only some remarkable reflections worth disclosing.

1.   In many cases, despite of the distinction between the concepts, a part of the students was prepared to take on defining only one of the concepts. In this case we do not know exactly whether it is a simple mistake, inattention or they presumed the distinction but grew indecisive when defining.

2.   Students confuse and mix the two concepts, i.e. they define the nonprofit sector instead of the notion of the civilian society and vice versa.

3.   Students depicted the important parts of the different definition interpretations, but these do not form an integral whole. From the concepts of the nonprofit and the civilian sectors the former was more precisely specified. As its most significant feature students emphasized its nonprofit-oriented activity.

4.   From the inaccurate interpretations of definitions the oversimplification of the public (nonprofit sector) versus not public (civilian) sector is characteristic, i.e. " the civilian sector is not public, the nonprofit sector can be public, as well. "

5.   When specifying the basic definitions several students emphasized other but concerning concepts, in some instances misinterpreting, namely the third sector, NGO and forprofit sphere. This repeatedly supports the former statement of ours, i.e. there is a conceptual confusion in the opinions of the students.

6.   On the other hand, it can be stated that the definitions by students receiving nonprofit faculty training are more complete and slightly closer to the accepted ones by the scientific literature. Nevertheless the above mentioned basic problems are strikingly present in this circle, as well.

7.   Therefore we still hold our former suggestions which aim to put an end to this condition. We are of the opinion that it is absolutely necessary that conferences should be organized and the preparation of auxiliary materials should be promoted in order to clear up this conceptual fuzziness. We would consider it a great leap forward if the accurate knowledge of the basic definitions spread in the whole basis of higher education.[8]

Consequently in our survey we also made inquires on the students’ choices. They have been asked- once they chose the nonprofit faculty, co-faculty- what kind of training they receive, what materials they use, what they study and whether they are content with the training on the whole. We believe that out of these questions the most important ones are what they study and what materials they use, since provided they get a thorough traning they can take up different careers.

In our questionnaire students have been asked about 22 different basic principles. The chart below presents a very detailed structure of these principles.

The chart makes it clear that the faculty, co-faculty trainings mostly put the emphasis on general and social sciences. On faculty, co-faculty trainings –based on the data- teaching takes place with the help of notes taken in classes. Articles or writings published in scientific reviews are often set as special literature by the instructors. By their own account students rarely study foreign special literature and the supply of textbooks and notes is not fully settled, either. All these draw the attention to the problem which appeared in our former survey, as well, i.e. textbooks, specialized textbooks and notes concerning the nonprofit field need financial aiding.