Cases

The Law to Promote Specified Nonprofit Activities (“NPO Law”) came into force in December 1998, and this allowed civil society organizations that had previously encountered difficulties in incorporating to do so relatively easily. The result has been the establishment of more and more incorporated nonprofit organizations each year. At the same time, however, organizations engaged in antisocial activities are steadily being highlighted in the news, so much that it has become a social problem. Concerned that allowing this situation to continue will lead to distrust in the nonprofit sector as a whole, leaders of NPO support centers throughout the country decided that nonprofit organizations should set their own standards and gain trust by living up to those standards. Discussions on standard-setting began in September 2003, and in the end, the Minkan NPO Shien Center Shorai wo Tenbo-suru-kai (aka CEO Meeting), for which the Japan NPO Center (JNPOC) served as secretariat, published a list of standards as the “Seven Necessary Conditions for Reliable Nonprofit Organizations” in February 2004.

While nonprofit organizations (or Specified Nonprofit Corporations) are the primary target for this tool, various types of civil society organizations are also expected to use it.

• Mission
• Financial Independence
• Autonomous Organizational Management
• Informational Disclosure
• Support and Involvement of the Community
• Secretariat Structure
• Dissemination of Message

Yes

“Seven Necessary Conditions for Reliable Nonprofit Organizations ? A Self-Assessment Check Sheet” (a localized version based on the “Seven Necessary Conditions”) : PDF

Seven Necessary Conditions for Reliable NPO : in PDF

None

N/A

Based on the “Seven Necessary Conditions for Reliable Nonprofit Organizations,” NPO Kumamoto, a local NPO support center, created the “Seven Necessary Conditions for Reliable Nonprofit Organizations ? A Self-Assessment Check Sheet,” for local nonprofits to use as a self-analysis tool. Using the Check Sheet, an organization may conduct a five-grade evaluation of its situation for each of the items under the Seven Conditions, adding comments to allow for detailed analysis. A column for goal-setting for the next three and five years is also provided, in anticipation of society’s growing trust in the organization’s activities.

“Seven Necessary Conditions” provides directions and goals for nonprofits to strive towards. It can be used to examine what the organization lacks and work towards finding ways to resolve these problems. However, as it is not a quantitative evaluation with numerical values but a qualitative one, it will likely be used as a tool that creates opportunities to think about the organization, rather than as “evaluation criteria” providing an objective assessment.

February 20, 2004

The “Seven Necessary Conditions” appear in the very beginning of “Shitte Okitai NPO no Koto (Kihon Hen) (Things You Should Know about Nonprofits (The Basics)),” a booklet published by JNPOC on key information about nonprofits. Since its first edition in 2004, the booklet is now in the first print run of its fifth edition and, as of the end of December 2015, has sold a total of about 32,000 copies. “Seven Necessary Conditions” is also available on the websites of JNPOC and the NPO online database “NPO Hiroba.” As of the end of December 2015, the total number of times that these were accessed reached about 25,000 (13,000 and 12,000 respectively). The aggregate number of viewers has thus reached about 57,000. “Seven Necessary Conditions” has also been introduced by JNPOC staff at various lectures, and been featured on other organizations’ websites, thereby drawing the attention of even more people.