Deadline: 9 June 2020
Reflecting these ideas, Open Society Fund Prague (CZ), Open Society Foundation Bratislava (SK), Glopolis (CZ) and the NIOK Foundation (HU) have created a consortium to jointly implement the “Stronger Roots for Civil Society” program. The program strives to increase the organizational and sectoral resilience of CSOs in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary and embed them in the societies in which they operate.
The Call for Proposals aims to support a great variety of CSO platforms, coalitions, umbrella and roof organizations, working groups and spontaneous joint initiatives (hereafter all simply referred to as “networks”) in extending their constituencies, strengthening mutual ties and engaging actors of diverging views.
This Call for Proposals is open to civil society organizations in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia and aims at expanding the range of membership and constituencies (partners, donors and other stakeholders) of their networks.
Goals and Themes
Successful applicants will receive funding and small support from consultants so that their networks contribute to a shift towards greater mutual understanding, respect and trust, shared identity and transversal cooperation in Czech, Hungarian and Slovak societies.
The grant should help CSO networks to involve more diverging worldviews and stakeholder perspectives in their strategic processes. In particular, grantees are expected:
- to broaden their understanding of the context, in which the network operates, as it is perceived by other actors in the field
- to set goals shared with different actors in the field
- to assess developments in the network’s agenda from diverging perspectives
- and to become a more open, inclusive and learning structure.
Funding Information
In this Call for Proposals, a total sum of €50,000 per country may be distributed and 2-5 projects are expected to be supported in each country.
Applicants may submit one proposal per network for a grant of a minimum of €10,000 up to a maximum of €40,000 per project. Co-financing is possible, but not required for the project proposal.
- Grant amounts: 10 000–40 000 Euros
- Expected duration of projects: 12–18 months
- Expected starting date of the supported projects: August 2020
- End date of the supported projects: December 2021 the latest
Eligibility Criteria
This Call for Proposals is open to civil society networks that adhere to the principles of democracy and human rights and represent the aggregate interests of civil society groups in one of the project countries: either the Czech Republic, or Hungary, or the Slovak Republic. Both traditional (organized) platforms, coalitions, working groups, umbrella or roof organizations, as well as new (spontaneous) civic initiatives, that are trying to build bridges among different groups are welcome to apply.
The applying network must:
- represent at least 10 different entities in the given country (civil society organizations, institutions or individuals). If several networks are applying, the number of their members together must be over 10.
- have at least 6 months of previous active existence (The applicants will be asked to prove that their network is an active and transparently working body with active participation and joint decision-making by its members. They also expect that the submitted proposals will be created as a common decision of the network‘s members.)
- be based in the Czech Republic, Hungary or the Slovak Republic.
The proposal has to be submitted by a registered legal entity, usually a single civil society organization representing the whole network, or the platform itself if it is registered:
- Czech Republic: registered legal entity in the Czech Republic, having a non-commercial purpose, defined by Czech law as a civic association (spolek, ústav, obecně prospěšná společnost), a foundation or endowment fund (nadace a nadační fond), or an organization department of a church or religious society (účelové zařízení církví)
- Hungary: registered legal entity in Hungary, defined by Hungarian law as a foundation (alapítvány) or an association (egyesület).
- Slovakia: registered legal entity in the Slovak Republic, having a non-commercial purpose, defined by Slovak law as a civic association (občianske združenie), a foundation (nadácia), a non-profit organization providing public beneficial services (nezisková organizácia poskytujúca verejnoprospešné služby), a non-investment fund (neinvestičný fond), a non-profit organization (nezisková organizácia), an association of legal entities (združenie právnických osôb), or the Slovak Red Cross (Slovenský Červený Kríž)
Non-Eligible Type of Organizations
Political party-affiliated associations, state-funded governmental institutions or profit distributing cooperatives are not eligible to apply for the support. Neither will a sole proprietorship nor a natural person be considered an eligible project applicant.
For more information, visit https://osf.cz/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/091_Stronger-roots.pdf