Civil society or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are non-profit groups or associations that act outside of institutionalized political structures and pursue matters of interest to its members by lobbying, persuading or directing action. Interest groups may be of political importance because of their ability to influence social and political outcome. At times NGOs seek to mobilize public support.

Examples of civil society institutions are private voluntary organizations, community-based organizations, intermediary organizations for the voluntary and non-profit sector, trade unions, gender, cultural and religious groups, charities, environmental groups, professional associations, consumer organizations and the media.

In post-communist countries NGOs are quite a new phenomenon. They need to develop vital skills. As they need healthy relationships with the public and the authorities to meet their goals their staff have to be trained in communication in order to be able to carry out public relations campaigns to raise funds or to employ standard lobbying techniques with governments.

Our experience in Slovakia (social dialogue: trade unions, employers associations and central government), Ukraine (charities and other social NGOs), Russia (community groups) and Moldova (social NGOs) shows that training in communication for a civil society pays off in the end.

Sometimes NGOs and national governments pursue opposite interests, and in certain situations NGOs and national and local governments may want to cooperate. One advantage of close cooperation is a more effective influence. NGOs offer a more efficient way of reaching people than a mass media campaign by the national government alone. Some organizations will help to distribute public information leaflets or other documents, others will disseminate the messages through their own channels (magazine, website).

And there is another advantage: credibility differs from organization to organization, as is clear from public research. If the organization with high credibility sends out the messages, this can help to extend the reach and the impact of communication. In general, the credibility of messages increases dramatically if multiple parties join forces.