A key part of Finnish civic activity takes place in NGOs. By definition an association, society or NGO is a consortium of people acting towards a mutual objective, value or interest. There are many types of NGOs in Finland, with a wide variety of objectives.

Some still perform tasks that for long have been regarded as belonging to the government. NGOs do invaluable work, especially in the field of social and health care. Examples of these include those campaigning against drugs or doing different types of substance abuse support work.

NGOs are very popular among Finns

Finns are keen NGO members. Per capita, the number of associations in Finland in extremely high.

The Finnish Register of Associations contains over 120,000 associations, of which 70,000 are actively operational. There are 1,000 national-level organisations and 3,000 regional ones. The rest are local associations. Another 30,000 associations are not registered. 

Associations have a total of 15 million members – three times the population of Finland. Around 75% of the population are a member of an association at some point in their lives, with 30% continuously a member of at least one association and 8% of more than five associations.

Finnish NGOs can be classified by type of activity as follows:

• sports and physical activity;
• culture;
• recreation and hobbies;
• social welfare and health;
• youth and students;
• politics;
• trade unions;
• economy and business;
• advice;
• religion and ideology;
• education and science;
• the environment;
• pensioners and war veterans;
• village and district activity;
• national defence and peace activism;
• friendship, ethnic and development cooperation associations;
• service associations.

Some NGOs are ideologically more or less in support of official government policy but do not participate in actual decision-making or implementation processes. For example, liberal adult education, anti-substance abuse or national defence associations have goals that are positive from a government perspective.

Some NGOs are openly critical about official policies or the basic structures and values of Finnish society. They seek to influence public opinion and political decision-making in order to change these social structures.

NGOs often have the role of a watchdog in social debate. They make sure people’s voices are heard in decision-making.

New values brought to politics by new movements

The 1960s saw the emergence of new social movements (NSMs). These included and still include the peace movement, the ecology movement, the animal rights movement, the women’s movement and the sexual minority rights movement. Many of the NSMs can generally be seen as oriented towards promoting quality of life and spiritual or cultural wellbeing rather than having aspirations of material or social advancement.

Today the liveliest ideological activity appears to be found within NGOs and other informally organised civic movements. These groups may focus on highly specific issues.

Civic activity is increasingly characterised by certain dynamism. People want specific and efficient influence on the issues that they find important.

Updated on October 10, 2006