Ethnic Hungarian Organizations Between the Home-State and the Kin-State

From the perspective of traditional mainstream theories of the third sector, it might be surprising, that there is a non-negligible number of non-profit organizations – namely minority nonprofits in Central Europe, and possibly elsewhere –, that build their existence, if not solely, but predominantly on government funding in the form of grants. An exploratory study of ethnic organizations in three multiethnic Central European cities has shown, while minority organizations fit the ideal type of a civil society organization in several respects, such as their legal form (association) and the role of voluntary work, they differ significantly from an ideal-typical CSO in that the dominant proportion of income of minority NPOs comes from such government grants. As a result, the structure of government support to minority organizations has a profound effect on the size, composition, typical activities of, and power relations within the minority institutional systems. The paper focuses on government grants that were established specifically to support the projects of minority organizations. These encompass grant systems to promote minority activities within the border of a particular state, as well as the support of kin-minorities living in other states. States with minorities living on their territories often fulfil their obligations stemming from various multilateral treaties on minority protection by supporting the cultural and other activities of the minority institutions. States with kin minorities living in other states often also provide financial support to their organizations. The paper focuses on the ethnic Hungarian organizations. Hungary is remarkably active as a kin-state, and the grant system supporting Hungarian organizations abroad expanded significantly in the last decade, while Hungarian organizations in Slovakia, Romania and Serbia have access to domestic sources of funding as well. The paper examines, how ethnic Hungarian institutions behave in such financial environment: what are the typical strategies employed by organizations, and how the changes in the grant systems – e.g. the increase of funding – influence these strategies? How do smaller and bigger organizations differ? How do the two sources of funding relate to each other: are they alternatives or do they supplement each other? What is the effect of government funding on the structure of the institutional systems?