Many NGOs try to improve their financial situations by providing different services, such as training and publishing. However, this does not contribute more than 25 percent of any one NGO's budget. The results clearly show that organizations would like to be more self-sustainable but simply lack the knowledge of how to run a successful organization. Financial and technical support for the implementation of local environmental projects is the most important need overall. Cooperation Cooperation is the cornerstone of successful development, either in the NGO community, the public sector or the government.
Information exchange is currently the most common type of cooperation in Latvia.
More than one-third of Latvian organizations do not cooperate outside the country in any form. Personal contact seems to be one of the most effective means of establishing cooperation on an organizational level and might be developed further into joint projects. It is encouraging that 25 percent of Latvian NGOs are able to find partners on the local level, and more than half the groups cooperate occasionally with the national government or its agencies, but NGOs admit that cooperation on the state level is the most difficult. Most NGOs acknowledge the importance of cooperation within Latvia, while cooperation with NGOs in neighboring countries and with Western organizations are both seen as equally important. Although challenging, all NGOs see cooperation with government authorities as the key to success.