Supporting community-based organizations to increase their capacity in working for the economic and social inclusion of marginalized people 

Because the majority of private international donors (mostly American) who supported the creation of the civil society after the fall of the Communist regime have decided that the Romanian NGOs and community groups no longer need their support when Romania entered the European Union in January 2007, and they have left the country, now, the community organizations are faced with an important issue: access to funds. Indeed, the European Union is presently the major development actor in the region, planning to disburse some 30 billion euro during the period 2007-2013. Because they use public funding, European Union projects are highly bureaucratic and difficult to gain. This project comes to support the community organizations to access these funds.

The community organizations have lots of project ideas and lots of enthusiasm and, in this project, we would like to help them transform these ideas into projects and support the organizations to identify resources for these projects. To this aim, within the present project, general information on project development and fundraising will be provided to 45 organizations and a consultancy team will work directly with 20 of these organizations to write project proposals. PACT Foundation will support the community organizations involved in the project in order to increase their skills and capacity to work for the economic and social inclusion of the vulnerable groups.

Oltenia and Muntenia regions, in the Southern part of Romania

December 1st, 2009 – May 31st, 2010

Through this project, PACT Foundation aims to:
1. Support 45 community-based organizations in designing projects to support the economic and social inclusion of disadvantaged groups and in identifying the needed resources for these projects
2. Directly assist 20 organizations to write project proposals which would impact the lives of some 1050 disadvantaged people.

  45 community-based organizations

-    Providing direct consultancy for project writing

Through community consultation, project planning and other different considerations, within one month after the workshop, up to 20 organizations will be ready and determined to submit a project for international/European funding. Four PACT consultants will work directly with these organizations to define their project idea, propose activities, plan for expenses and put together their paperwork. The main responsibility for project writing will remain with the organizations themselves, while the consultants will devote 5 days for each organization to ensure the quality of project writing and the fulfillment of all procedures. Consultancy will be provided through telephone, internet and on-site visits when and where needed, over the course of 3 months.

The estimated results of this project are:
-  45 people, representatives of 45 community-based organizations will increase their capacity in attracting resources for the economic and social inclusion of the marginalized groups

-  20 projects of an average value of 30.000 euro will be submitted for funding

-  10 partnerships and cooperation agreements will be created throughout the project period, between the community organizations and other relevant local actors (local authorities, public institutions such as schools, church etc.), in view of project writing and project implementation

- 450.000 euro of international/European funding will be raised by the community-based organizations for improving the lives of some 1050 disadvantaged people in rural communities

-  the lives of some 1050 disadvantaged people will be positively impacted through the implementation of at least 15 projects

During February 4th -6th 2010, Foundation PACT organized a large seminar involving 36 representatives of community organizations developed through PACT Foundation’s programs. The event - "From ideas to projects for local communities’ development" brought together, besides representatives of CBOs, representatives of several institutions managing funds for local communities: the National Agency for Community Programs in Education and Professional Training – Youth in Action department; the Roma Education Fund; the Vodafone Foundation Romania and the Management Authorities for the Operational Program for Human Resources Development and for the Operational Program for Administrative Capacity Development.

At the event we chose to present potential funding opportunities that are suitable for these community organizations, in terms of correspondence with their project ideas. The goal of the event was to assist the participating CBOs to transform their ideas into projects and to identify partners and resources for them. The seminar included presentations of potential funding opportunities for the CBOs’ projects, and workshops led by representatives of the financing institutions together with a facilitator from PACT team, for shaping concrete projects which would contribute to the development of the communities that the organizations represent and which would address the real needs of the disadvantaged groups.

Following the event, the CBO representatives held meetings with relevant stakeholders in their communities. The purpose of these meetings was to build up concrete and detailed project ideas for the development of the communities they represent, in a participatory manner.

 Financers:

 wishes to remain anonymous 

Georgiana Gavrila – project coordinator, Roxana Florescu – consultant