Posted on February 19, 2026
The Japan NPO Center regularly hosts the “Forum on Future Prospects for private NPO Support Centers (hereinafter referred to as the “CEO Meeting”),” inviting executive-level directors of local centers supporting nonprofit organizations (NPOs) from across the country to exchange insights and expertise. After two years of collaborative dialogue within this meeting, we are pleased to announce the release of our collective roadmap: “Our Vision for the Future of Private NPO Support Centers.”
This document outlines the shared values that will define the future of NPO support centers, structured around three core pillars: Organization, Role, and Mindset. We hope this vision serves as a foundation for reflection—helping NPO support centers celebrate their achievements, address emerging challenges, and evolve in harmony with our changing times. We invite you to explore the full document.
The Japanese civil sector has expanded significantly since the enactment of the Act on the Promotion of Specified Non-profit Activities (commonly known as the NPO Law) in 1998. Over the decades, it has matured into a robust and cohesive sector, characterized by the emergence of diverse, cross-disciplinary networks. We take great pride in the steadfast contribution of local NPO support centers in establishing the frameworks necessary to strengthen the organizational management and resilience of non-profits.
It is worth noting that prior to its enactment, the NPO Law was deliberated under the title “Act to Promote Citizen Activities.” As this name symbolizes, our core mission remains the fostering of activities driven by the initiative of citizens themselves. We aspire for these efforts to serve as a catalyst for civic autonomy—building an inclusive society through active participation, resolving local challenges, and creating new values. Above all, we take profound pride in our role as a vital vessel for democracy.
Meanwhile, three decades have passed since the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake—a pivotal moment often hailed as the “Dawn of Volunteering” in Japan. Since then, the landscape surrounding the civil sector has undergone a profound transformation. We now face a shifting social environment defined by new challenges: a shrinking pool of active participants due to a declining and aging population, alongside a growing trend among corporations to integrate social problem-solving into their core missions.
Now more than ever, there is a profound need for NPOs that tackle diverse social challenges through participation and cooperation to create new value. With the vital activities of NPOs at our core, we, as NPO support centers, must leverage our “power to bridge connections” to foster meaningful collaboration among diverse stakeholders. By doing so, we are called upon to catalyze a transformation in the approaches of corporations and government administration alike, allowing the spirit of participation and cooperation to ripple across society as a whole.
Based on this shared understanding, we have identified the core values for the future of NPO support centers, categorized into three key perspectives: “Organization,” “Role,” and “Mindset.” Just as society changes, NPO support centers must affirm the achievements of the past three decades, confront our current challenges, and evolve in step with the times. Our hope is that this document will serve as a central axis for ongoing dialogue toward that evolution.
This vision, “The Vision for Private NPO Support Centers,” is the culmination of extensive deliberations within the “Forum on Future Prospects for Private NPO Support Centers (CEO Meeting),” a collaborative group of support organizations across Japan. Recognizing that the ideal role of an NPO support center must shift in tandem with the era, we have developed this document with a five-year outlook, targeting the year 2030. Furthermore, we wish to emphasize our steadfast commitment to regular review and ongoing dialogue. Our goal is to ensure that NPO support centers continuously evolve to meet society’s changing expectations in an ever-shifting world.
We are private NPO support organizations that serve as the infrastructure for building an inclusive society driven by citizen initiative. To fulfill our mission, we strive to build an organization that functions as follows:
We aim to be a platform that builds trust-based relationships and facilitates collaboration and mediation across all sectors. To this end, it is essential to proactively identify and reach out to a wide range of local stakeholders with the potential for partnership. Furthermore, to be a trusted presence, NPO support centers must take the lead in active information sharing and disclosure.
To respond to changing social conditions and address needs that fall outside the framework of government systems, NPO support centers must remain flexible in their mission-driven projects. It is essential to avoid a rigid financial structure that relies too heavily or too long on specific, restricted funding, such as government contracts. By developing independent projects and securing our own private revenue—through earned income, membership fees, and donations—we can maintain both financial and decisional independence and autonomy. In particular, “empathy-based funding,” such as membership fees and donations, is indispensable for an organization supported by its citizens.
Gathering information, fostering exchange, and building trust are vital for launching new initiatives or improving existing ones in response to the needs of NPOs and the community.
By looking beyond local boundaries to share knowledge and experience with network organizations for specific issues and other NPO support centers, we can improve our own projects and organizational capacity. This mutual cooperation ultimately creates a better environment where NPOs in our own regions can thrive.
To transform civic activities from a niche pursuit by a specific few into something deeply rooted in the local community, we must share information about social issues and NPO activities. Engaging in advocacy and public relations is essential to create an environment where more citizens proactively take the initiative to participate.
It is vital to create an environment where a diverse range of citizens can participate in our own organizational management and projects. We must take the lead in building a democratic organizational culture where decision-making is shared, ensuring that responsibility and authority are not concentrated in specific individuals. Additionally, we must proactively create an environment that enables a smooth transition to the next generation.
Around 1998, when the NPO Law was enacted, there was a surge of interest in the decentralization of local government power and civic autonomy. During this time, the importance of support systems for NPOs—alongside legal and tax frameworks—was actively discussed, shaping the fundamental roles and functions of NPO support centers. However, these roles must evolve to stay relevant in a changing world. We have redefined the essential roles of NPO support centers today through three key perspectives:
As our environment shifts—characterized by an aging, shrinking workforce and a rise in single-person households—it is more critical than ever to help NPOs strengthen their organizational foundations for long-term sustainability.
1. Tailored Support for Individual Needs
The challenges NPOs face have become increasingly diverse, influenced by local characteristics and their specific stage of growth. Consequently, one-size-fits-all approaches, such as general consultations and seminars, are no longer sufficient. Support providers today must carefully assess each organization’s unique situation and, when necessary, provide deep-level support that extends into business strategy. Furthermore, it is vital to co-create systems that leverage an organization’s strengths in collaboration with businesses and local governments. The key to future NPO support lies in building relationships of trust with individual citizens and organizations, offering flexible support with a “human touch.”
2. Diversifying Resource Mobilization, Including Financial Sustainability
For NPOs to sustain their activities, maintaining a stable financial base is essential. Rather than relying solely on grants or contracted government services, it is crucial to adopt a “hybrid model” of resource mobilization. This includes developing independent revenue-generating programs, partnering with corporations, establishing donation systems, and securing non-monetary resources like goods and professional expertise. Support centers play a vital role here; they are expected to master and share expertise in fundraising and effective collaboration with the private and public sectors.
3. Supporting the Development of Future Contributors
The growth of “human resources”—individuals who empathize with an NPO’s vision and support its operations—is vital for sustainability. However, recruitment and retention remain significant challenges for many organizations. It is important to go beyond traditional volunteering and employment; we must create environments that embrace diverse forms of engagement, such as new flexible workstyles and the active involvement of skilled volunteers (Pro Bono).
4. Encouraging Broader Civic Engagement
Active participation from citizens is fundamental to the sustainability of NPOs. In recent years, we have seen an increasing number of NPOs becoming overly professionalized or business-oriented, sometimes to the point where they no longer actively seek civic involvement. Furthermore, weakening community ties have resulted in fewer opportunities for people to get involved. It is crucial to ensure that citizens remain “active participants” rather than mere “onlookers.” To achieve this, support centers must help NPOs diversify their engagement strategies—whether through effective storytelling to spark interest, or by developing clear pathways for donating, becoming members, signing petitions, attending events, and creating volunteer programs. Supporting citizens through these various channels is essential.
5. Visualizing and Communicating the Value of NPO Activities
To build trust and ensure continuity, NPOs must clearly communicate their social significance and demonstrate their impact—showing exactly “what they do and what results they achieve.” By making activities visible through photos and data and sharing them via social media and reports, NPOs can build stronger ties with supporters, businesses, and government agencies, while fostering empathy and cooperation among the public. An important role for NPO support centers is to provide technical expertise in communication and to create platforms where citizens can easily have access to NPO information. Furthermore, beyond just sharing information, encouraging civic engagement (as mentioned in the previous section) and hosting dialogues with diverse stakeholders serve as vital opportunities to deepen public understanding of social issues and the strategies needed to address them.
To address the deepening divisions within society, the increasing complexity of local issues, and the growing demand for support in local governance, NPO support centers must expand their role as bridges. We must enhance our “coordinating function”—connecting people, resources, funding, information, and organizations—to foster collaboration among diverse actors.
1. Coordination Skills Based on Trust
It is essential to have the ability to coordinate diverse local actors—not only NPOs, but also local governments, businesses, cooperatives, schools, neighborhood associations, freelancers, and professionals (such as lawyers and accountants). By understanding the unique strengths, expertise, and key personnel within each group, NPO support centers can ensure that every stakeholder plays their most effective role. This coordination is vital for solving social issues and co-creating new social value.
2. Facilitating Multi-Stakeholder Platforms to Address Local Issues
By leveraging the coordination skills mentioned above, support centers are expected to catalyze partnerships and networking among diverse actors involved in specific local challenges. An essential part of this role is creating “platforms” where stakeholders can share local issues, hold discussions, and engage in the pilot testing and evaluation of collaborative projects. Furthermore, support centers must provide “continuous, hands-on support” (known as bansou support in Japan), helping these initiatives evolve and stay resilient in the face of rapid societal change.
3. Balancing Local and Regional Networks
When an NPO support center operates within a relatively small area (such as a single municipality), it may find it difficult to secure all the necessary stakeholders or build the relationships required for an effective network. In such cases, the center is encouraged to collaborate with other NPO support centers to build broader frameworks. By expanding the network to a regional or prefectural level, centers can bridge the gap between local needs and wider resources.
As our external environment shifts—marked by growing public indifference, an increasingly intolerant political climate, worsening municipal finances, and the trend of large corporations winning bids to manage public community facilities—NPO support centers must strengthen their ability to amplify citizens’ voices and drive social change through advocacy.
1. Promoting Advocacy Activities
We should proactively deepen our commitment to promoting advocacy that brings attention to overlooked social issues and the voices of those directly affected. To achieve this, NPO support centers will work closely with NPOs on the ground to identify, analyze, and organize sector-specific challenges. Our role includes providing essential support such as training, assistance in drafting policy proposals, and sharing communication expertise. Through these advocacy efforts, we aim to make invisible issues visible and stimulate public debate toward finding solutions. When facing common challenges that impact the entire nonprofit sector, NPO support centers nationwide will unite and take collective action.
2. Proactive Engagement with Government and Building Equal Partnerships
By leveraging the on-the-ground voices and specialized expertise of NPOs, we will build strong connections with government councils, committees, and elected officials. Our goal is to present policy issues from a bird’s-eye view, facilitate constructive dialogue, and ensure that these insights are reflected in public policy. To achieve this, we strive to establish truly equal partnerships with local governments and legislative bodies. Furthermore, we will intervene strategically in the policy-making process and empower citizens by enhancing their own capacity for advocacy and policy recommendation.
3. Evidence-Based Policy Advocacy Through Research
To conduct effective advocacy, we will disseminate clear information based on research and study. Our research goes beyond simple data collection; it involves a multi-faceted analysis of the current state of civic activities, impact verification, and the uncovering of latent community needs. This process provides the “evidence” necessary for persuasive policy proposals. To sustain these research activities, we aim to diversify our funding through commissioned projects, grants, and joint research with corporations and universities.
4. Fostering Public Understanding and Creating a Civil Society
Our advocacy efforts aim not only to gain public understanding but also to foster a more mature civil society. We will actively communicate the significance and value that civic activities bring to society as a whole, sparking interest among indifferent citizens and encouraging “onlookers” to take action. Ultimately, we seek to transform civic consciousness—turning passive observers into active contributors—to create a sustainable and vibrant civil society.
To realize the ideal state and roles of NPO support centers outlined in the previous sections, the dedication of every individual staff member is essential. As actors responsible for building an inclusive civil society, we have defined the following mindset that all NPO support center staff should embrace.
It is vital to hear the “authentic voices” of diverse individuals firsthand.
Real change often begins with the quiet whispers or heartfelt thoughts of individual citizens. For instance, a simple “I wish this existed” or “This isn’t right” might start as one person’s observation. However, by truly listening, we may realize that others share similar feelings. By learning about the background of these issues together, fostering mutual understanding, and confirming our role as partners who think alongside them, we can help these small circles of connection grow.
While an endless amount of information is available online, it does not always hold all the answers or the complete truth. By visiting the actual sites where NPOs operate, listening to the voices of those directly affected, and perceiving the situation with all our senses, we build the foundations of trust and mutual relationships.
To amplify the emerging issues raised by individual citizens and to support activities born from new civic awareness, it is essential to respect diverse values, grounded in a deep sense of human rights.
The consultations brought to NPO support centers often include new challenges arising from societal shifts, or long-standing issues that have remained invisible to the majority. We can only recognize these as true challenges if we step beyond our own limited knowledge and experience and maintain respect for diverse perspectives.
As human beings, we all tend to perceive things through the lens of our own background. This can lead to skewed viewpoints and “unconscious bias.” It is crucial to remain mindful of this tendency and constantly update our perspectives in today’s rapidly changing society. To do this, we must look beyond the NPO sector to gather broad insights, engage in deep dialogue with users and stakeholders, and ensure opportunities for internal study sessions and reflection among staff.
The reason civic engagement is vital for NPOs is that it creates opportunities for people to view social issues not as someone else’s problem, but as their own. When individuals empathize with a cause and take ownership of it, NPOs can accelerate their problem-solving and increase their visibility. Simultaneously, citizens develop the habit of thinking proactively, making it easier for them to take action. NPO support centers must lead by example, practicing civic engagement themselves and sharing those firsthand experiences with the NPOs they support.
NPO initiatives range from solving immediate social issues to creating new social value. Public interest grows when citizens understand the background of these diverse activities—the “why” behind them and their social significance. In this process, people may encounter a sense of indignation toward injustice or experience the excitement of creating something new. Encountering “alternative perspectives” and new ways of thinking can be a powerful catalyst for personal and social change.
To grow a community of empathetic citizens, we must widen the “entry points” for engagement. This goes beyond traditional donating or volunteering; it includes purchasing products that support a cause, attending events, or participating in study groups. Designing these opportunities is what we refer to as civic engagement program development. As civic participation flourishes, citizens strengthen their capacity for self-governance, marking a significant step toward building a robust civil society.
We must make a conscious effort to grasp the structural nature of the issues NPOs face. It is essential to provide support that is firmly grounded in an understanding of the background and systemic roots of the challenges each organization confronts on the front lines.
In many cases, even when an individual faces a personal crisis, the root cause lies not in personal responsibility but in systemic flaws within society. By adopting this perspective, we can identify institutional shortcomings and move beyond mere “symptomatic treatment” or temporary relief. This allows us to think about problems through the lens of structural reform—asking ourselves what truly needs to change in society.
To achieve this, we must not only listen to NPO staff but also deeply understand the voices and needs of those directly affected, using our imagination to grasp their life circumstances. NPO support center staff are expected to view individual struggles as manifestations of broader social structures and to translate those insights into powerful advocacy and policy recommendations.
NPO support center staff must maintain a stance that is firmly rooted in the NPO sector, striving to ensure the sector earns and maintains the trust of society.
To promote the activities of the NPO sector, we are expected to lead the way in building equal partnerships with other sectors and institutions. It is therefore crucial to remember that any words or actions that undermine the value of an NPO not only harm that specific organization but can also lead to a loss of trust in the NPO sector as a whole. However, being rooted in the sector does not mean blind conformity. It also means having the integrity to point out and encourage the improvement of any inappropriate behavior or remarks by the NPOs we support.
Earning the trust of the government, corporations, and the public enhances the value of NPO support centers themselves. Standing with NPOs, offering empathetic support, and raising our voices as members of the NPO sector are essential actions that demonstrate our commitment and are indispensable to our identity.
This document is the result of discussions held by the “Forum on Future Prospects for Private NPO Support Centers” (the CEO Meeting).
Since 2022, the Japanese government’s “Basic Policy on Economic and Fiscal Management and Reform” (the Honebuto Policy) has explicitly mentioned “NPO support through intermediary organizations.” While the specific terminology has evolved, this focus remains clear and has been carried forward into the latest 2025 policy. However, the term “intermediary organization” is inherently ambiguous. In practice, various government ministries have been launching initiatives based on their own unique interpretations of what an intermediary should be. As NPO support centers that provide essential intermediary functions, we have long debated our own role and identity. We felt it was necessary to consolidate our perspectives on “intermediary organizations” and share our self-recognition as a collective. This document summarizes the results of those deliberations.
This document was drafted by the Executive Committee based on discussions from the 44th CEO Meeting. Following further deliberation at the 45th Meeting, a drafting committee was formed from among the participants to refine the content. The final version was confirmed during the 46th Meeting.
★: Group Leader
Administration
Original Japanese text posted on January 30, 2026.
English translation by JNPOC
(Special thanks: Satoshi Ohno of the Ibaraki NPO Center Commons)