The specificity of identity formation in project activities of Russian non-profit organizations

Introduction: as a result of the new government support mechanisms in the form of presidential grants, the role and scale of the third sector in Russia has risen in such areas as “preserving historical memory”, “strengthening the interethnic and inter-religious harmony”, etc. This, as well as the current discourse on building state and civic identity brings forward the need to analyze the activities of Russian non-profit organizations (NPOs) in the formation of territorial identity in their regions. Objectives: to analyze the social design of non-profit organizations in the Republics of Tatarstan and Mordovia in the field of territorial identity formation, to identify level correlations within the projects and practices of the above organizations. Methods: the concepts of “multi-level identity” by Z. A. Zhade and the “compound identity” of E. V. Morozova; the works by I. S. Semenenko in the categorization of “active citizenship”; the concept of civic leadership by C. Brooks et al.; Internet monitoring of practices and projects of non-profit organizations; analysis of the Presidential Grants Fund database. Results: the research outlines the specificity of NPOs social projects in the Republic of Tatarstan and the Republic of Mordovia in the following areas: preservation of historical memory, interethnic and inter-religious harmony and others. Various strategies for the formation of territorial identity levels have been identified. Conclusions: social projects of non-profit organizations reveal the basic lines of various levels of territorial self-identification and respective commonalities; this is also true for the regions with a complex identity (republics). Non-profit organizations act as agents for the construction of identity; however, this resource is still largely underestimated.