This year, for the second time, I took part with great interest in the competition panel that selects applications for government NGO grants for the State Club foundation. The foundation received a total of just under 800 applications from all the federal districts of our huge country. Virtually every region was represented, with just a few exceptions. I was pleased to see a full 16 applications from the Republic of Tatarstan, 2 of which were given grants by the State Club.

The experience of taking part in the State Club competition panel is exceptionally important for me for many reasons. First, it’s an opportunity to keep up with developments in the nonprofit sector – civil society, with the initiatives they are putting forward and the responsibilities they are willing to take on. Second, as you probably know, the competition is about identifying projects in support of youth initiatives and projects, so that makes it doubly interesting for me as the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma’s Youth Affairs Committee.

I sat down to read the applications with such enthusiasm, and yet I’m now writing this post with such disappointment. It seems to me that the main problem is that our society is not trying (I don’t know whether it’s a case of “can’t” or “won’t”) to think about systemic solutions to youth problems, about systematic ways of developing young people in our country, but instead concentrating on purely one-off projects that don’t address the profound issues facing young people. I would describe all this in a single word as superficiality, multiplied by short-termism. On realizing that money is being handed out for youth projects many organizations have decided to get into youth projects, despite having no experience or competence in this area. And in addition to that, most NGOs can’t even fill out an application properly or put together a budget for their project and explain how they intend to implement what they are proposing.

Last year’s problem of inflated budgets still persists: many of the projects have unbelievable budgets with little justification for the expenditure. And often the lion’s share of the money is spent on funding the organization’s own needs: buying computers, printers, video cameras, office supplies and so on, and also on buying equipment for a one-off campaign, a single event.

Another observation is that the projects sent in tend to be very polarized: they’re either about supporting talented young people and identifying leaders, or else supporting and socializing difficult youngsters. These are very important subjects, of course, and there are some good projects in these areas, I’m pleased to say. But by no means all our young people fall into one of those two categories. So what we need are projects and initiatives for developing the rest of our young people, and we should be doing all we can to get these people and youth organizations involved in our competition.

I’ve studied quite a few projects over these two years, and I think it would be sensible to make some changes to the competition application form. So I’ve sent my suggestions to the organizing committee and hope they’ll agree with them.

Some of the projects were excellent, of course, but they were few and far between. I would really like to see Russian youth wake up and come alive, because we have so many talented and creative people! Guys, the government is ready to fund your projects. All you need to do is get together, think up a topical and interesting project and fill out a proper application form. Don’t just wait for somebody to do it for you!