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Annual Report 2002

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Annual Report 2002

Civil Society Program

This Program has the objective of initiating and supporting undertakings geared at improving the operation of non-governmental organizations in Poland and at propagating positive models of civic activity. It is our goal to encourage different organizations laboring towards the public good to coordinate their efforts and to reach out to other social partners (local government, the business community, volunteers); we strive to ensure that these organizations are well managed and that they put their resources to good use.

Institutional Grants

As was the case in previous years, a considerable portion of the Program’s budget was devoted to institutional grants for NGOs demonstrating good records of achievement in the area of their activity (be it culture, social aid, health care, international cooperation etc). The goal of these grants is to assist the recipient organizations in the implementation of changes necessary for their sustained development and stabilization, for the formulation of long-term operating strategies, for introducing some diversity to their sources of funding, and for increasing the effectiveness of their resource management. In the year 2002, institutional grants were extended to 20 organizations.

Greenhouse

The year 2002 saw the fourth edition of the Greenhouse project, aimed at fostering the development of local non- governmental organizations. In 2002, the activities pursued under Greenhouse were focused on small and recently established organizations active in the areas of social aid and health care in the provinces of Łódź, Małopolska, Silesia, and Świętokrzyskie. The Greenhouse was implemented in cooperation with local partner organizations, namely Forum of Social Welfare Organizations, OPUS Association of Łódź, Bridge Association of Katowice, and the Association for Local Development and Philanthropy of Kielce. Our partners were charged with advertising the possibility for obtaining aid, assisting local organizations in the preparation of applications, assessing the incoming proposals, and with monitoring the undertakings pursued by grant recipients. The grants extended by us through our partners, numbering 95 in total (up to PLN 3 000 each), were devoted to purposes such as the retaining of an expert, participation in trainings enhancing organization management skills (accountancy, public relations etc.) or the purchase of software or professional literature.

Information and Social Communication

Information and Social Communication in Lower Silesia project was implemented between July 2001 and June 2002 together with the Working Community of Social Welfare Organizations from Wrocław, the Wrocław Regional Council of Disabled People, The Chance Association from Glogow and the Warsaw based Klon/Jawor Association. Upon this project, geared at putting new technologies (such as the Internet) to use in identifying the problems faced by NGOs in Poland and in planning coordinated responses to them, thus increasing their effectiveness while achieving greater integration of NGOs in the region of Lower Silesia. The project also entails provision of open source software useful in the NGOs’ work.

The project involved 120 different NGOs based in Lower Silesia (among others: Bystrzyca Kłodzka, Legnica, Głogów, Oława, Wołów, Wałbrzych, Dzierżoniów, Zgorzelec, Ścinawa). Being largely diverse, they worked in six area-of-interest groups: homelessness and extreme poverty, family and maternity protection, disabilities and illnesses, addictions, children and youth, free time, recreation and hobby development. The objective was to develop a strategy for cooperation and problem solving in selected areas, to exchange positive and negative experience, to share resources and represent the NGO community before government administration, improve capabilities and control cost. Each group worked with a consultant who moderated meetings, provided advice and assisted in raising funds to support the group’s projects.

Liaison Officers – Experts on Social Development and EU Funding

With a view to helping the NGO sector get involved in planning, monitoring and utilizing structural funds, we initiated a program in 2002 to build a network of liaison officers/experts on social development and EU funding. This program was welcome by NGO sector. The kick-off meeting held on March 8 was attended by 150 representatives of NGOs from the various area-of-interest groups from all provinces of Poland. They engaged in the recruitment process and selected two regional liaison officers in each of the provinces; in addition, three area-of-interest liaison officers were selected for environmental issues and agriculture.

The role of liaison officers is to assist NGOs in competently and pro-actively participating in all structural fund processes. The first task was to develop a formula for cooperation with NGOs, government offices and public institutions (such as local and regional government, Provincial Labor Offices, World Bank project offices, agricultural extension services, regional development agencies etc.) and the media and business. Liaison officers take up more responsibilities as the project develops: develop a regular relationship with Marshall’s Offices, ensure the transparency of recruitment into regional steering and monitoring committees, review regional developing strategies and operational programs, monitor procurement procedures, inform NGOs on existing EU funding opportunities, assist in writing particularly large applications, help to build coalition around projects. Almost all liaison officers have institutional support from local NGOs, which provide office facilities. Each organization received a grant from the Batory Foundation to cover the expenses while developing a regional cooperation network (e.g. meetings, report development and travel). We provide further support to liaison officer by keeping them informed and organizing regular meeting and training, sharing reports and assessment papers, promoting their position and facilitating their approach towards government administration, and by funding specific selected activities. The project is implemented in close collaboration with the International Program of the Batory Foundation and the Representative Office of Polish NGOs in Brussels.

You Have a Vote, You Have a Choice. Local Government Is Yours

You Have a Vote, You Have a Choice is another new project scheduled to last four years and designed to strengthen public interest in elections and build a sense of shared responsibility of the electoral constituency and the elected representatives. We want to send out a message that a ballot can make a difference and ordinary citizens, and not just powerful pressure groups, can influence public life. In the autumn of 2002 i.e. just before the elections, we launched an outreach campaign together with Gazeta Wyborcza and the Local Newspapers Association. Gazeta Wyborcza published a kick-off text in its national edition on October 16. It encouraged the public to take part in the local elections. Regional inserts of Gazeta Wyborcza published short Foundation-authored summaries on key aspects of municipal management (public safety, education, health, welfare, culture, environment, municipal services, entrepreneurship and employment support, friendly and efficient office). These texts were to help the voters set out possible expectations towards the local authorities and assess the viability of the election promises.

In cooperation with chapters of the Foundation in Support of Local Democracy, NGOs affiliated in the SPLOT network and Małopolska European Education Forum, election promises of key mayor candidates were collected from around 180 communities for review and monitoring fulfillment.

Seminar on Legal and Financial Aspects of Endowment Building

On June 6-7^th 2002 the Stefan Batory Foundation in cooperation with Ford Foundation and with a financial support of Polish-American Freedom Foundation, Trust for Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe and the US Embassy in Warsaw organized a seminar on Legal and Financial Aspects of Establishing and Managing Endowments. Despite its narrow focus the seminar was greatly welcome by Polish NGOs, which demonstrates how popular the issue of financial sustainability is in Polish NGO sector. Many of them ponder seriously the ways to make their operations sustainable. The panelists from the US, Western Europe and the Visegrad countries: Barry Gaberman, Senior Vice-President of the Ford Foundation, Carl Carstensen, CFO of the Volkswagen Foundation, Germany, Nilda Bullain, consultant from the International Center for Non-Profit Law in Budapest, Pavlina Kalousowa, Director of the Czech Donor Forum and Milan Andrejkovic of the First Slovak Non-profit Service Center, as well as the lawyers professor Hubert Izdebski and Tomasz Kacymirow from Poland presented the regulatory and fiscal framework for endowment building and asset management in their countries. Their presentations clearly demonstrated that in the respect of legal environment for endowment building and management Poland is left behind not only by the US and Western Europe but also by the Visegrad group countries.

The practical aspects of endowment management were presented by Carl Carstensen of the Volkswagen Foundation, Livia Harringova from the Slovak Ekopolis, Sandor Koles from the Carpathian Foundation, Tomasz Perkowski from the Foundation for Polish Science and Marcin Murawski from the Leopold Kronenberg Foundation of Bank Handlowy, Jacek Wojnarowski, Director of the Trust for Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe, Robert Thomas, consultant to the East- West Institute who had conducted research on legal and fiscal issues connected with endowment building and management in Central Europe as well as representatives of Poland’s financial sector: banks, asset management firms and investment funds discussed what should be done to enhance the environment for endowments and NGO financial sustainability in Poland.

The seminar looked into the prerequisite conditions a foundation has to meet to be successful in endowment building and the appropriate timing of the process. Barry Gaberman of the Ford Foundation in his opening remarks pointed towards what he referred to as “the tyranny of numbers” and demonstrated a simple formula which implied that if a foundation wants to have USD 1 million of its capital gains in general support and still preserve the purchasing power of the endowment over time it must accumulate USD 25 million. Gaberman also suggested that while there were no “industry standards” on the minimum level of endowment it is believed in the foundations community that it is worth the effort to raise the endowment if proceeds can cover some 15- 20 per cent of the organization’s operational budget. According to Gaberman key organizational and financial factors that an organization should consider before embarking on endowment building include: strong leadership and experienced management, a history of at least one successful leadership and board succession, an active and diverse board that truly governs the foundation, financial stability and transparency over the past several years, fiscal accountability with annual outside audits, diversified funding base. Further, it is critical that a clear endowment fund-raising plan be established and a financial committee be formed to oversee the investment and spending policy approved by the board.

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