The Application of Social Accounting Approach in the Procedure of the Socially-Oriented NGOs Competition for the State Financial Support

<p style="text-align: justify;">The aim of this study is to evaluate the applicability of the social accounting approach as an instrument for the selecting NGOs state financial aid&nbsp;recipients. Actually, this study has more than one task. The first one is to study different competitions for nonprofits for state financial support and identify one in which it is possible to use the social accounting approach. The second one is to examine the main forms of social accounting for the third sector, identify and adapt the most appropriate model to use it as a tool for NGOs selecting. The third task is to test this methodology by the application it for NGOs programs filed on the federal Competition Economic Development of Russia in 2012 NGOs. The forth task is to develop recommendations for the application of the chosen method.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">A distinctive feature of this paper from previous researches is an attempt to improve the procedure of NGOs selection in the competition on the financial state support by applying the elements of social accounting approach. The core idea of this study is that the selection of socially oriented NGOs should be considered the social impact that organizations have on different stakeholders.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The research hypothesis is the assumption that it is the possible to use some elements of the social accounting approach in the contest for the selecting NGOs state financial aid&nbsp;recipients.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The basic methods of NGOs performance evaluation and types of nonprofits state support existing in Russia were examined in the theoretical part of study. Theoretical background for this paper was the studies of domestic authors (Tarhanova, Borisova, Polishchuk, Podolsky, Benevolensky, Shmulevich, Jakimets) and foreign ones (Gray, Mook, Richmond, Quarter, Brown) in the field of evaluation and accounting of non-profit organizations. Also, the theoretical analysis was based on laws that regulate the field of the nonprofits financial support in Russia. In addition, the study used relevant analytical materials and domestic research examining the practices of Russian support from NGOs.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The empirical background of this study is the programs of NGOs state financial aid recipient in 2012. The empirical part of study deals with testing the chosen approach of social accounting by evaluating NGOs competitive bids with expanded value added statement. Despite some problems of the application of this method, we believe that in general it is possible to use the proposed instrument or its elements in the procedure of NGOs selection.</p>