Financial Sustainability Criteria and Their Testing in the Conditions of the Slovak Non-Profit Sector

Socio-economic and political changes after November 1989 have strongly influenced Slovak society, with impacts being observed on almost all areas of economic, political, social and public life. Highly intensive development of the so-called “third sector” has been among these factors. A new legislation framework has been created. Non-profit organizations have become the state's partners in the area of providing social services not secured by the state, and these organizations have strong economic and social power, influencing the development of the whole society. Today, financial sustainability is one of the fundamental problems in the non-profit sector. This problem has become more important due to foreign capital withdrawal by donors to non-profit organizations, primarily during the 1990s. National support from public sources is limited and is not sufficient for the functioning of non-profit organizations. In non-profit organizations, we emphasize the necessity of the diversity of financial resource structures, ensuring their independence, financial stability and sustainability from both short-term and long-term perspectives. The aim of this article is to establish key criteria for non-profit organizations' financial sustainability, subsequently investigating these criteria's dependence and the level of financial source acquisition in a selected sample of Slovak non-profit organizations. We assume that owing to these criteria, non-profit organisations (NPOs) could better formulate their financial strategies, diversify and stabilize their financial sources and transform this strategy into a long-term strategic plan to maintain and develop their entrepreneurial missions