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This article discusses a set of tools of government enacted in Russia between 2009and 2013 to provide support to so-called socially-oriented nonprofit organizations (SO/NPOs). In Russia this approach is to be considered as a serious policy innovation since so far government policy vis-à-vis the nonprofit sector could be described as either indifferent or predominantly restrictive. The conceptual framework employed is based on the concept of “third-party government” and the tools of government approach. We first consider the legal definition of the subsector of SO/NPOs, and then investigate the newly introduced tools of government support featuring data on the scope of Russian federal government support for SO/NPOs, showing substantial similarity to government tool kits employed to support NPOs elsewhere in the world.