It is increasingly being recognized that the voluntary sector has an important role to play in socio economic development and poverty eradication.

The strength of the voluntary sector lies in the flexibility of its operations, its people sensitivity and ability to respond to field realities, it freedom from bureaucratic restrictions and its ability to attract committed people. The main weakness is the absence of support infrastructure and institutions. if the voluntary sector is to play its rightful role in the rural areas of the country there is need not only to encourage the emergence of a large number of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) but also to put in place the support infrastructure.

STAPI is the first support service organization aiming to cater and provide various support services to the voluntary sector. This includes capacity building, NGO promotion & strengthening and bringing out publications for voluntary organizations.

Upgrading of technical and managerial skills of NGOs is a must for the over all development of NGO sector. The human resource & financial sustainability is essential for their survival and growth. STAPI as a catalyst is helping the NGOs in broadening their prospective. The importance of training for development of human resources of voluntary organizations thus cannot be over emphasized.

STAPI has long and rich experience and expertise in organizing various tailor-made trainings on issues relevant to the NGOs for various categories of the project staff of NGOs working in different social sectors. These trainings can be further categorized as trainings in NGO management; trainings in project management; capacity building in specific skills learning; trainings in specific areas; trainings in innovative areas; trainings in supportive supervision including exchange of experiences; conduct of on-spot trainings or trainings at NGO site for providing handholding support; trainings and advocacy meetings for policy framework with regard to various social issues; conduct of brainstorming sessions etc. The refresher, need based & issue based trainings are also organized.

A major achievement of STAPI has been in capacity building of NGOs. During the period from 2000-2001 to 2018-2019 upto (31/3/2019 )STAPI conducted 376 training programmes for 8571 representatives of 3950 NGOs.

The board categories of the Training Organized by STAPI are :

• Trainer’s Training Programmes : These Trainings deal with the training of NGO representatives in substantive technical matters. The participating NGO representatives are further expected to impart training to their field workers project areas.
• Project Promotion Workshops : These Trainings are meant for capacity building in various areas of project promotion which are focused on NGO strengthening and its sustainability
• Implementation Assistance Programme : These are the Trainings for providing supportive supervision to the various project partners implementing particular projects.
• Workshops on Capacity Building : The capacity building Programme includes NGO and Project management, legal framework for the voluntary organizations, financial management, Pre-Project Planning ,Project Formulation , Project Preparation, Project monitoring and evaluation including a road map for project sustenance, Professional skills and strategic planning in resource mobilization ,
• Exchange of experience : These programmes are meant to facilitate easy sharing of the successes, failure and innovations of NGOs working on similar projects.
• Programmes on Good Governance for long termsustenance

The Training Subjects :

STAPI has been organizing series of trainings on various issues relevant to the NGOs some of which are:-

• Legal framework for the NGOs
• Statutory compliances under the office Charity Commissioner
• Capacity building in financial management
• Capacity building NGO Management & project Management trainings – promotion, Development and bank linkage for the NGO’s working in micro finance
• Resource Mobilization
• Experience sharing and implementation assistance Programmes
• Capacity building trainings in “How to start a Voluntary Agency”
• Capacity building in innovative subjects Pre-retirement counseling involvement of Religious Trusts in social welfare activities
• Involvement and role of NGOs in non-conventional sources of energy
• Right to information and role of NGOs
• Conduct of field supervisory visits cum on spot handholding trainings; etc.

The trainings are organized at our Headquarter which has full-fledged training infrastructure including accommodation and food facilities for the NGO trainees. The trainings are also organized at different district locations in Maharashtra.

The donations towards training activities of STAPI were exempted under Section 35 AC of Income Tax Act till 2017-2018.