sluzhenye.sandy.ru was the website of a Nizhny Novgorod resource center for nonprofit organizations, active from the early 2000s. In the earliest surviving captures it is presented as the "Support Center for Nonprofit Organizations of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast," listed at 603001, Nizhny Novgorod, Markin Square, 3, with phone number (8312) 31-35-64[1]. By the middle of the decade the site was called the "Center for the Development of Public Initiatives" and belonged to the Nizhny Novgorod Association of Nongovernmental Nonprofit Organizations "Sluzhenie" (Service)[2]. The last web-archive capture of the home page is dated December 7, 2008[5].

The site in the early 2000s

The early version of the home page fit on a single screen of text: a heading, a "русский / english" language switch, and a list of the center's areas of work. The center's mission was formulated as "uniting and supporting Nizhny Novgorod nonprofit organizations that address socially significant tasks, with the goal of establishing and developing civil society," as the home page put it[1].

The list of activities included drafting and promoting laws and regulations related to the work of NGOs, publishing the monthly bulletin "Sluzhenie," a correspondent bureau of the Agency for Social Information, and conferences and seminars on organizational management, funding sources, legal aspects, and taxation. Separate items covered monitoring a database of Nizhny Novgorod NGOs, a library for nonprofit organizations, internet access services and web page development for NGOs, and a volunteer service. The page also had sections titled "Our Clients" and "Web Addresses of Nonprofit Organizations of Nizhny Novgorod," meaning the site also functioned as a directory for organizations that did not have their own web presence. Branches of the center were reported in Cheboksary, Yoshkar-Ola, and Saransk[1].

Contact details of that period: phone (8312) 31-35-64, fax (8312) 34-28-06, mailing address 603001, N. Novgorod, Markin Sq., 3, email in the sci-nnov.ru domain. The signature listed the date of the last update — December 13, 2000 — and the name of the web designer, Svetlana Krotova[1].

The site in the second half of the 2000s

By 2007 the center had moved to 24 Rozhdestvenskaya Street (central entrance, offices 12 and 14), open from 10:00 to 18:00. Phone numbers — (8312) 31-35-64 and 31-30-52, fax (8312) 34-28-06; email was now split by department: a general address, an inbox for the training and consulting service, and an inbox for the PR service, all in the sinn.ru domain[2]. In the 2008 capture the same number is already recorded in the ten-digit format — (831) 431-35-64, 431-30-52[3].

The set of services listed on the home page had grown more detailed: consulting on resource mobilization, social project design, and grant application writing; on public relations; on working with volunteers and on working with the internet and email; information and PR support; legal assistance with registering and re-registering organizations; accountant consulting on bookkeeping and taxation for NGOs; "Professional Development Courses for Social Sector Workers"; an NGO Leaders Club and an organization database; an NGO library, the public newspaper "Sluzhenie," and the Nizhny Novgorod correspondent bureau of the Agency for Social Information[2].

The home page also served as a news feed. In June 2007 it announced the "White Flowers — 2007" charity campaign, which started June 1, and reported on a joint project with the Polish association "BORIS," "Development of Local Communities," running since May 2006 with support from the C. S. Mott Foundation[2]. In the 2008 capture, its place was taken by the results of the 2007 Charity Season and the interregional project "Civic Discussions: From Idea to Result," launched in January 2008; areas of work were grouped into four blocks: professional growth of NGO leaders, promotion of civic initiatives, cross-sector cooperation (social partnership, competitive grant funding, legislative initiatives, NGO fairs), and the development of charity — the Nizhny Novgorod Charity Seasons, charity balls, and private-donation campaigns[3]. The bottom of the 2007 page listed those with whose support the center operated: the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, the association "BORIS," and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands; it also named web designer Svetlana Krotova and web administrator Maria Petrenko[2].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The site lived on a third-level domain and never had a name of its own in the nn.ru or nnov.ru zones. In the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote of 2004, it received 6 votes[4]. It has no recorded position in the Counter.nn.ru ranking in the surviving snapshot. More on the sample the site fell into is in the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating; the broader context of the era is in the article Nizhny Novgorod Internet.

Closure

Web-archive captures break off at the end of 2008: the last saved visit to the home page is dated December 7, 2008[5]. What became of the address after that is not shown by the archival materials; they contain no evidence of the site moving to another domain.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2001 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2007 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2008 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote, 2004 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Home page, last capture, December 7, 2008 (archive)