2.3 Size of the Nonprofit/Civil Society Sector
Since in Thailand, as mentioned above, NPOs are not required by law to register with the government or other independent/private agency as is the case in most of the countries, there is no reliable data about the total number of NPOs.
Reliable statistics are available only for registered NPOs, mainly foundations and associations established with the ONCC. After slow growth in the early years, NPOs under these two categories had blossomed in the 1990s at the rate of about 1,000 per year. There are about 20,000 foundations and associations by the end of the twentieth century from about 14,000 in 1994 and about 17,000 in 1997. However, many of these registered NPOs exist just by the name; they are not functioning any more.
As for the non-registered NPOs, it is difficult to tell how many of them exist. Nonetheless, it is believed that active NPOs in the broad field of development, which include areas such as human rights and environment, are numbered to no more than 500. They have been formed mostly in the past two decades and about half of them are members or associated to the network of the NGO Coordinating Committee on Development (NGO-COD).
This number will grow significantly if we include all forms of civic groups and organizations which may not feature all the five characteristics mentioned above (p.1). These include registered co-operative and non-registered organizations operating with Co-op principle that generate dividends (profits?) for their members, and groups that their institutional presence and structure is unclear or unstable, such as local women's groups, farmers" groups and groups of the urban poor, for example. Social Investment Fund Office under the Government Savings Bank reports that it has now supported about 1,700 civic groups in its twenty-month operation till September 2000. Finally, the size of the sector would be gigantic if Anuchart, Arporn and Pirapat's defintion (1999) is accepted.12
2.4 Their Finance and Other Resources
Because of the lack of reliable data about NPOs in Thailand as mentioned above, it is difficult, if not impossible, to give an accurate picture of the financial status of Thai nonprofit sector. Financial capacity of these NPOs varies so greatly that it makes it hard to compare. It could be said, however, that most NPOs, especially the small ones, are financially insecure; they survive on yearly or project (1-3 years) basis.
As for Thai development oriented NGOs, one finds, on one hand, Population and Community Development Association (PDA), a national NGO with annual budget of about Baht 90 million and about 700 staff of various kinds, and small local NGOs with annual budget of a few hundred thousand Baht and a few staff on the other hand. Many scholarship-giving foundations have no operation budget and no staff; their committee meets once a year to allocate bank interest from their endowment as scholarships to students. Cremation associations collect agreed cash from each of their members when a member passes away and give it to family of the deceased. Until recently most development NGOs rely nearly totally on foreign donors; few receive donations from Thai public or corporate philanthropy. More NPOs now are funded by the government. Apart from the Environment Fund, these supports come as a part of the government"s budget which is annual and can fluctuate widely depending on the officials/departments concerned and personal judgement of politicians.
Related to financial resources, human resource is another top problem for most Thai NPOs as limited money implies limited number of staff. As staff payment is generally low and personnel development is often not the priority of NPOs, human resource problems are not only about number but also their "quality" whether one talks about professionalism or effectiveness, efficiency and good governance (transparency and accountability). Only a small number of NPO staff can be considered specialists or experts in their field of work as historically most of them came to work for NPOs because of their ideology rather than their professional training.
