ABSTRACT
About 90 per cent of all Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) established in post-communist countries operate in Poland. Polish RDAs are more and more visible on the European forum, highly effectively undertaking joint projects with their partner organisations in the European Union. Some of the regional development institutions were established as foundations; that is, on the basis of the Act on Foundations of 6 April 1994. Among the surveyed RDAs, almost 80 per cent had problems during their creation stage. The basic problem they encountered was primarily the shortage of financial resources and difficulties in winning support for the idea of establishing an agency among the authorities and local elites alike. The volume of initial capital for the surveyed RDAs oscillated between 2000 PLN and 11,200,000 PLN, On average, the initial capital of an RDA was 927,000 PLN. In more than half of the surveyed agencies the number of shareholders/stockholders has changed since their establishment.
