The Stefan Batory Foundation

About the Foundation

Activities and procedures

The Stefan Batory Foundation manages fourteen programs, ten of them: Equal Opportunities, For Tolerance, You Have a Vote, Watchdog Initiatives, Legal Education, Civic Institutions, Community Initiatives Partnership, Memoria, East-East, and Citizens in Action provide grants to other organizations. The grants are made in support of specific projects that fit in the Foundation’s program areas. The Foundation makes also general support and seed capital grants. Both types of grants are offered in open competitions that are announced on Foundation’s website and disseminated through mail and electronic media to the potential grantees. Grants applications are considered on a competitive basis by specialized committees of experts in relevant fields who recommend the projects for funding to the Foundation’s Board. Final decisions of grant awards are made by the Foundation’s Board at the monthly meetings.

In addition to grantmaking the Foundation also manages three programs internally: the International Cooperation Program, the Anti-Corruption Program, and the Regional Alcohol and Drug Program, organizes public debates, conferences, meetings, study visits, seminars and training sessions, monitors public authorities, commissions public opinion polls, publishes policy papers, analyses and reports, and initiates awareness campaigns. It participates in the network programs of the Open Society Institute designed to stimulate the exchange of information and experience within the Central and Eastern European region (see: East-East Program and Regional Alcohol and Drug Education Program).

The Foundation announces up-to-date information about its activities and grant-seeking opportunities in the Foundation’s Newsletter, leaflets and on the Web Site. It publishes Annual Reports presenting the list of grants awarded during the year and providing details concerning all the Foundation's projects together with the financial reports. Every year, the financial aspects of Foundation’s work are professionally audited by KPMG for compliance with Polish as well as international accounting standards. The reports are distributed among national and local media and several hundreds of non-governmental organizations, institutions and individuals. Copies are also available free-of-charge in the Foundation's Warsaw office and upon request can be sent by mail.