EU SURVEY OF NGO LEGAL & ADVOCACY NEEDS

Source: The Good Lobby

There are over 1800 NGOs registered in the EU Transparency Register. Many of these NGOs engage in public interest advocacy, seeking to influence EU policymaking for the benefit of the public. Given the increasingly demanding nature of the EU policy process, NGOs are required to mobilize technical expertise (either on-staff or external), and in particular legal expertise, so as to sharpen their advocacy. In 2016, 100 Brussels-based advocacy NGOs active across various policy areas were surveyed to identify their legal and advocacy-related needs. On the basis of the EU Transparency Register listings, the total population of NGOs with an office in Brussels whose primary interests were listed as either at the "European" or "Global" level was approximately 600. Of these 600 organizations, 100 of them completed the survey. That is a response rate of just under 25%. As a result, the survey of 100 NGOs is reasonably representative of the entire given population of 600.

Key findings:

• Just 31% of NGOs have lawyers and public policy experts on staff. On average, these NGOs have 3.8 on-staff lawyers while over 50% have just 1 lawyer on staff. With the exception of one, all NGOs that have more than 2 on-staff lawyers have a budget of over 1 million EUR. Meanwhile, just 11% of organizations with a budget of 250,000 EUR or less, have lawyers on staff.
• 54% of NGOs do have some experience with pro bono (free legal services) and on average those NGOs make use of pro bono 3.4 times per year. NGOs with a budget of 1 million EUR or more are nearly twice as likely to make use of pro bono than NGOs with a budget of 250,000 EUR or less.
• NGOs tend to make use of pro bono lawyers and on-staff lawyers for programmatic/strategic matters (NGO advocacy) and paid external lawyers for administrative/operational matters (NGO governance).
• The most common legal needs of NGOs are: (i) legal research and analysis (77%); (ii) governance matters (62.5%); (iii) employment and HR (60%); and (iv) lobbying assistance vis- à-vis the EU institutions (56%).
• Nearly 90% of NGOs surveyed require advice in relation to EU law. Substantively, human rights, migration/asylum, diversity and non-discrimination are the most popular advocacy issues among NGO pro bono needs and interests.
• Overwhelmingly, NGOs source pro bono support informally through their networks. Typically, this means via contacts of the NGO staff or NGO board members. Several complained of a need for a more structured, reliable and predictable way to source pro bono support.

NGO Focus Areas

1. Agriculture
2. Air Pollution
3. Asylum
4. Biodiversity
5. Chemical Pollution
6. Children
7. Circular Economy
8. Citizenship
9. Civic Engagement
10. Climate Change
11. Consumer Protection
12. Development
13. Economic and Social Justice
14. Education
15. Environment
16. Energy
17. Equality
18. Family
19. Finance
20. Foreign Policy
21. Fundamental Rights
22. Future Generations
23. Governance
24. Human Rights
25. Immigration
26. Justice
27. Migration
28. Nature
29. Political Rights
30. Poverty
31. Product Design
32. Soil Pollution
33. Transparency
34. Waste Prevention
35. Water Pollution
36. Youth