In the Russian Federation the delivery of social services to deserving population groups is mostly the responsibility of local governments. Municipal agencies hold a monopoly position in delivering publicly funded services. One way to inject competition into the delivery system is for local government to hold competitions to contract for social service delivery. The competitions can be open to nonprofit organizations (NGOs), some of which have been providing assistance in recent years to needy individuals and families. A critical question is the readiness of NGOs to serve as contracted providers. This paper reports the results of an assessment of the current practices of 13 NGOs in delivering various types of social services. We find that the range of capability of Russian nonprofit organizations engaged in providing such services is indeed wide. We confirmed the relatively high level of professionalism in those NGOs that had received substantial technical and financial assistance from international organizations with similar missions. Additionally, among the nine “grass roots” NGOs in the sample, one-quarter appears to have the capacity to deliver services under contracts to local governments. A clear need for training in the process of service delivery was identified. An expansion in donor-supported training for the many NGOs engaged in these activities is recommended beyond the areas of start-up, governance, networking, and fund raising for which training is now abundant to ways to increase the efficiency and professionalism of service delivery.