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Annual Report 2004

Civil Society Program

The aim of this Program is to increase citizens’ participation in public life, and to enhance the role and efficiency of civic institutions. We help organizations that contribute to the growth of community initiatives. We encourage them to cooperate with one another as well as with other social partners: local government, the business community, volunteers, and participate in creating social policy and strategy of development of Poland. We try to promote positive models of civic activity and the principles of public scrutiny over both public institutions and public organizations.

Institutional Grants

In 2004, we held an open competition for institutional grants aimed to help NGOs build stable foundations for continued functioning, develop successful action and financing plans and contribute to raising the standards of the organizations’ work and management. The competition was open to NGOs founded before 2002, with at least 3 full-time employees and diverse funding sources, playing an important role in a certain area of social life and cooperating with other organizations and institutions. The organizations have to prove they had a vision for their own development. Twenty-eight organizations received institutional grants after the two-tier contest.

ProBonus Fund

On the initiative of the Mott Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Batory Foundation, a three-year fund was set up with an aim to increase capacity and efficiency of infrastructure organizations acting in the field of support and development of NGO sector in Poland. The Fund is managed by the Civil Society Development Foundation.

Liaison officers – Experts on social development and EU funding

With a view to help 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. Currently, in 16 Polish provinces, there are 28 regional and three liaison officers specializing in ecology and farming.

The liaisons prepared a concept for the cooperation of NGOs with public offices and institutions, media and business, they oversee the transparency of the recruitment system for the EU structural funds Regional Steering and Monitoring Committees and opine on regional development strategy. It is also the liaisons’ task to inform organizations of available funding from EU sources, providing advice in drafting particularly difficult applications and assisting in building project coalitions.

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 liaisons 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.

In 2004, the liaisons actively participated in the process of selecting NGO representatives to the Regional Steering and Monitoring Committees, many of those were appointed to fill these functions in the regions.

Watchdog organizations. Social responsibility in public life

The purpose of the project initiated in 2004 is to support the activities of NGOs involved in public scrutiny of the observance of transparency and responsibility in public institutions and intervention in cases of violation or disregard of these principles. We awarded 22 grants for projects concerning protection of human rights, patient rights, environmental protection and control of local government and public administration.

You have a vote, you have a choice. Local government is yours!

In 2002 we launched a four year project of monitoring promises made by candidates for mayors, presidents and heads of municipalities during the local government campaign. The aim of the project is to encourage citizens to participate in elections and make decisions important for the entire community; we want to reinforce voters‘ and elected politicians‘ feeling of common responsibility for these decisions.

In 2004, in cooperation with regional centres of Foundation in Support of Local Democracy and the Network of Information and Support for Non-Governmental Organizations SPLOT we verified how mayors and presidents fulfilled their campaign promises in 97 municipalities. A report showing the level of promise fulfilment was drafted based on that data. It was made available to the public via local media and on our Website.

Microgrants for individual development

In 2004, we awarded 21 microgrants to NGO activists and employees designated for increasing qualifications and skills, gaining professional experience or making contacts important for their individual career growth as well as for the development of the organization. The grants were awarded for, amongst other, courses and trainings related to management of the organization, trainings and courses for those providing psychological assistance and therapy, post-graduate studies and study visits.

The Beata Pawlak Award

From a named Fund established at the Foundation by the last will of a deceased Beata Pawlak, journalist and writer, who died on October 12th 2002 in a terrorist attack on Indonesian Bali, an award is presented annually to an author of an article or series of articles dealing with other cultures, religions, or civilisations.

2004 was the second year of Beata Pawlak Award. The prizes went to Piotr Kłodkowski, for a cycle of articles Sumptuous Taste of the Orient, published in the Znak monthly, and to Andrzej Stasiuk for the book Riding to Babadag (Czarne Publishing Office, 2004). The award presentation took place on October 11 in the Batory Foundation. It was accompanied by a panel discussion Thrown overboard? devoted to the situation of former communist bloc states, which are not members of the European Union, and an exhibit of photographs taken by Beata Pawlak during her last, six-month trip through Asia. The debate, with the participation of journalists: Bogumiła Berdychowska, Miłada Jędrysik, Bogumił Luft and Andrzej Stasiuk, was moderated by Konstanty Gebert.

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