Political sponsoring of NGOs

Does the end justify the means?

Political parties sponsoring NGO’s, is it acceptable?
Greenpeace and green political parties are united in their position against nuclear energy and their support for renewable energies. Christian charity organizations and conservative political parties both stand for traditional family values and against family planning. But does this mean they should work together? Often political parties sponsor NGOs, but is this sponsoring even acceptable? There are several arguments which we would like to consider.
The credibility of NGOs as independent organizations and their ability to pursue their social interests are harmed by political sponsoring.
The credibility of NGOs decreases, because more often than not, the interests of political parties are more important than the original agenda of the NGOs, due to (financial) sponsoring. The reason for political parties to engage with NGOs in the form of political sponsoring is to increase attention for the statements on the political agenda. NGOs often have more resources and are less restrained to all sorts of rules and laws to protest in rigorous actions. However, this money can only be invested when the NGO compromises its own agenda with the agenda of the political party, which means that they might have to compromise on their own values, missions and visions. Hence the question rises; how can an NGO be called non-governmental when there is a political influence?
A counterargument for this is that there is a difference between a political party and the government. Of course this is the case, but a political party is a part of the government. In the Netherlands it is even the case that the political parties get subsidy by the government, so these are inseparable. Thus we argue you can´t call a NGO non-governmental anymore when it is sponsored by political parties, which significantly decreases their credibility.
Democratic control of political action that is ‘outsourced’ to NGOs and is therefore beyond democratic control.
When a political party is chosen to participate in a country’s parliament, this is done in a democratic way. People can vote for the party that has arguments and goals closest to the person’s own vision. However, the board of an NGO is not chosen in a democratic way, they are simply hired because they are the ‘right person to do the job’. When NGOs will engage in political actions, people who are not democratically chosen will gain political power.
The accountability of political parties to their stakeholders, in particular those who may not agree with the objectives of the NGOs that are sponsored, is harmed by political sponsoring.
When people vote democratically for a political party, they vote for the agenda the political party has before engaging with any other organization. When political parties go and sponsor NGOs, the party most likely has to compromise on its own agenda to get to an agreement with an NGO. Citizens now are ‘voting’ for NGOs without knowing this. The voters do often not have a say in which NGOs are sponsored, so there is a great likelihood that part of the political party’s stakeholders will not approve of the chosen NGOs at all. The missions and visions of these organizations could be in contradiction with the opinions of the stakeholders and voters, and they have absolutely no control over this.
Proponents of political sponsoring say that the voters don’t compromise, because they have the same goal as the political parties. We would like to stress here that even though someone has the same goal, you don’t have to agree with the actions that are taken. Especially actions of NGOs, which are most commonly known as radical, can get a lot of resistance by the voters and other stakeholders of the political parties.
An important question you can ask yourself in the light of this last argument is: Does the end justify the means? Does the common goal lead to an acceptance of all (radical) actions taken by NGOs? This is an important question, especially for the stakeholders of the political party, because by political sponsoring all the stakeholders of the parties (including the voters) indirectly approve of the NGOs’ actions.
Our conclusion
To sum up, when there is political sponsoring of NGOs attacks the credibility of NGOs to pursue their societal interest, political action goes beyond democratic control and the accountability of political parties to their stakeholders is harmed. Consequently; is political sponsoring of NGOs acceptable? NO!