Public or private? Financing Spanish Development NGOs

Abstract

In this article the financing structure of Spanish NGOs is analysed, through a study of the origin of the funding obtained, whether private or public. The high level of concentration in a small number of entities and a marked degree of heterogeneous financial situations, as well as the preponderance of public funding in many of them, have lead the term “non–governmental” to generate a certain wariness in some social or ideological circles. The article offers organised and up–to–date data from the different sources of income, as well as a simple multivariant analysis that produces a maximum of seven NGO groups with relatively homogeneous characteristics. Finally some considerations are made about financial dependence between the public sector and the NGOs, which are the two agents of development policy.