The Open Cooperation report does the math for activists. In Italy over 1,000 projects, +40% in the last five years. Boom in public funds and partnerships with companies, but risks of definancing and changes in the international context are also emerging.
For the collective opinion the NGO they are organizations that spend themselves for nobles causesfrom aid to migrants to climate change, but behind these humanitarian and social crusades, there is a hidden financial war machinewhich has no equal.
The numbers of the sector according to Open Cooperation
The numbers of these giants I’m on the portal Open Cooperationa platform that has been collecting the financial movements of more than ten years 250 among the most important organizations in the sector. From the tables it emerges that last year the Italian NGOs have consolidated the growth trend with a increase by three percentage points and that in the last ten years the value of revenue is more than doubled.
Civil society organizations alone mobilize a quantity of economic and human resources comparable to important production chains of our country with the only difference that they have increased the business in a progressive and continuous way. They have an economic value of more than that 1.4 billion eurosequivalent to sectors such as sparkling wines, Italian ice cream or designer furniture and furnishings. The Italian NGOs are active in 129 countries of the world with almost 6.000 projects implemented (+4% compared to 2023) of which 48% in Africain the locations indicated by Floor Mattei. Mozambique, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda are in first place among the countries where the majority of initiatives have been concentrated (793 projects).
The activities are also interesting conflict contexts: 114 for the Ukrainians, 176 in support of the population of Palestine, 146 in Lebanon.
But it’s in Italy that the NGO concentrate the initiatives: over 1,000 those achieved in 2024 by 92 organizations and one 40% growth in the last five years in particular on the issues of educational poverty, assistance to refugees and new forms of poverty.
The ranking of the big financial companies
In the classification based on financial statements, they rank among the top ten, Save the Children, AVSI Foundation, Intersos, Doctors Without Borders, Coopi, Emergency, Italian Committee for Unicef, WeWorld, Doctors with Africa and ActionAid.
We are talking about financial big names, so much so that more than80% of the economic revenue of the sector is realized by top 20 Italian organizationsa constantly growing percentage as revealed by Open Cooperation.
But how are they financed? For 58% with public funds and for 42% from private funds. Public funds at NGO they come from the so-called institutional financiers37% fromAgency Italian for Aics cooperation and from Maecianother 33% fromUnion European (EU+Echo), just over 15% from local authorities through decentralized cooperation and the remaining 14% from government agencies United Nations and other international organizations.
As regards private funds (there are over 2 million donors), while those provided by private and banking philanthropy remain substantially stable (32%), revenues from donations or partnerships with companies from 35 to 41%. The fiscal channel of 5×1000 contributes 21% and the churches approximately 7%.
69% of organizations have certified financial statements while 31% do not.
Salaries and human resources
From the platform it appears that cooperation operators earn in Italy from a maximum of 145,000 euros gross per year to 10,000 euros while for abroad the highest salary is 89,496 euros gross.
The NGO they focus heavily on the diversification of financing sources, assigning an increasingly important role to partnerships with businesses. This opens up new synergies between the non-profit and private sectors, with potential systemic benefits.
They also increase human resources employed in the sector, in Italy and abroad with almost 29,000 operators (53% men and 47% women). A heritage of people which grew by 7% compared to 2023 and which in the last ten years has been more than duplicate. Added to these employees is the activity of active volunteers (52,196) and those in civil service (1,762). In 2024 they increased by 5% and 35% respectively compared to the previous year.
The new risks for the sector
However, the situation is changing. «We note something significant defunding of the resources allocated toAgency Italian for development cooperationwhich represents the main tool that the Italian system has equipped itself with with law 125 to translate cooperation policies into action”, he states Sandro De Luca, president of Link2007. The international context, conditioned by the measures implemented by the American administration in the first months of 2025 with the disengagement from various multilateral funds and the closure of Usaidhas changed and there is the risk of a change of pace in Italy too. Elias Gerovasi, curator of the Open Cooperation projectexplains that «over the last 12 months several donor countries have significantly reduced their allocations for international cooperation and humanitarian aid in the wake of national political priorities that shift attention to security, border defense and migration management at the expense of development aid». DeLuca points out that from Budget law «the substantial emerges maintaining the overall level of funds for development cooperation, in contrast to the cuts adopted by many international donors”. And he underlines that the commitments in recent years are increased significantly with the expansion of the priority countries for Italian cooperation (from 18 to 31) and the strategic investment linked to Mattei Plan.
