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Annual Report 2006
Civil Society ProgramThe 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 benefit organizations. In 2006 we carried out the following projects: Institutional grantsIn 2006, we addressed institutional grants to organizations that run local scholarship funds in the framework of our Equal Opportunity Program. Organizations that had been given institutional support in 2004-2005 were excluded from the grant competition. In the effect, 27 organizations were invited to apply. Each of them could apply for a three-year grant up to PLN 40 000. The grant funds could be used to cover operating costs, purchase of equipment, small investments, institutional development and the capacity building (training for workers and volunteers), planning and evaluation, improvement of financial management, promotion and fundraising.
Eventually, in 2006 we made 28 institutional grants of a total volume PLN 1 104 980. 25 of them were awarded to organizations that have cooperated with us in the Equal Opportunities — Local Scholarship Program and 3 to other associations: Gaja Ecological and Cultural Club Association, Seed Cultural and Ecological Association, and Legal Intervention Association. Watchdog organizations. Social responsibility in the public lifeIn 2006, we organized the third edition of the grant competition for watchdog organizations. This time we supported projects related to the monitoring and publishing of information on planning, spending and accounting for public money. Organizations could apply for grants of up to PLN 40 000 for such activities as the development of systems of search and dissemination of information on planning, spending and accounting for public money, educational projects on the public finance management, development of financial monitoring tools and the usage of the available legal instruments in the process of monitoring the management of public funds, as well as advocacy efforts focused on the change of negative practices in the field of public funds management. We received 29 grant applications, 19 of them were awarded grants. Is it forbidden to criticize the councilors? Puszczykowo Kurier,free of charge a monthly independent from the local government, has been circulated in Puszczykowo for the past few years with the print run of 3 000 copies. It is hard to get money for the production, but recently the title received a boost from the Batory Foundation: its project Through transparency to democracy was one of the winners of the competition for watchdog organizations. It all began with an article of the Poznan edition of „Gazeta Wyborcza”, in which we published our opinion on the work of Poznan councilors. It was subjective, often critical, and dealt more with the quality of their work than with the time they spend in sittings. — We thought in our editorial team it was an excellent idea. We've also received phone calls from Puszczykowo residents encouraging us to do with our 15 councilors what „Gazeta Wyborcza” did in Poznan — explains Gabriela Ozorowska. Together with the editor-in-chief Zofia Skibińska, medical doctor by profession, they got to work. They first asked councilors for their own evaluation of their work. When seven replied, it became clear the evaluation had to be produced by the journalists. — I went to all sessions and most of committee sittings, so our opinions were based on direct observation — Skibińska says. Notes on how some councilors do nothing or care more of their family shop than work in the local government or fail to take part in discussions hurt the feelings of a group of councilors who run in the Sunday elections on the ballots of the Puszczykowo committees and Active and Sporty committees. Both committees sued „Puszczykowo Kurier” in the fast-track 24-hour court mode. For what they saw as slander, the committees demanded a gag order for the title, a correction and PLN 10 000 to be paid for the Maltan Aid House in Puszczykowo. As a part of our support to the initiatives of the social control of public institutions we made also 4 grants for: monitoring the work of the special parliamentary investigative committee on the banking sector, development of a transparent system of publicly available information on persons serving in elective public posts, monitoring of the debate over the institutional reform of the European Union and the future of its constitutional treaty and monitoring of the work of educational authorities. Altogether, in the year 2006, we supported 23 monitoring projects of a total volume PLN 976 420. In June 2006 we organized the conference Budget Watchdogs. How citizens can control public funds with the participation of representatives of three leading American organizations engaged in budget watch activities. Nick Johnson of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Lauren Coletta of the Common Cause Educational Fund, and Noah Berger of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center presented various aspects and types of budget watch activities carried out by organizations in the United States. The conference was followed by the workshops conducted by American specialists during which the participants were shown practical examples of budget watch activities, learnt how to prepare the strategy of such actions and how such projects are financed in the U.S. as well as how to build coalitions and mobilize broad support for advocacy efforts for the change of legal regulations. Your vote, your choiceThe goal of the project we have been running since 2002 is to stimulate interest of citizens in the matters related to their local communities and to reinforce the feeling of common responsibility of the electorate and the elected for the decisions made on a voting day. In 2006 we completed the first stage of the project, which was to monitor the promises made before local government elections by candidates for city mayors in 2002. In October, we published an online Report on the realization of promises 2002 and disseminated the results of the monitoring activity in the media before the local election to provide the voters with the information on the actions taken by their local authorities before the new local government ballot. In April 2006, in the preparation to the new local elections, together with the School of Leaders Association, we launched a public campaign aimed to raise the electorate's interest in the problems of their community and prepare the voters to the conscious act of casting a ballot. The action raised considerable interest in the NGO community: 339 non-profits from 224 places all over Poland joined the campaign, including associations, foundations, student organizations, economic chambers, and industry organizations. Their task was to prepare the inventory of local problems, organize election debates with the participation of the residents and candidates for mayors, and prepare local get-out-the-vote campaigns. Participating organization were offered technical support including a cycle of information and training meetings organized in various regions for a total of 330 people, the individual experts' consultations and counsel and auxiliary and promotional materials. The campaign Internet site www.maszglos.pl was launched, serving as a platform for the exchange of information and experiences of campaign's participants. Between October and November 12, 137 debates were organized locally with candidates for voits of communes and city mayors and local residents. In most cases, these were the first public debates organized in the community. In October the Foundation launched a national get-out-the-vote campaign. It was carried out locally in 246 townships by the organizations participating in the project and by a group of 200 secondary school students — participants of Youth votes project of Center for Citizenship Education. The get-out-the-vote campaign was accompanied by a nationwide promotional action that included: a television spot prepared by the agency DDB Warsaw, aired free of charge by 13 TV channels including Polsat, TVN and MTV, and also shown in 23 movie theaters throughout Poland; a radio spot aired free of charge by 40 national, regional and local radio stations; a get-out-the-vote sticker art competition organized together with the daily Gazeta Wyborcza, and a street happening in Warsaw in front of the Royal Castle, during which volunteers dressed as Polish kings distributed paper crowns as a symbol of authority, encouraging passers-by to vote. The action was summed up at a meeting in Warsaw on November 9, accompanied by the debate Do people have faith in their representatives? with the participation of Radosław Markowski (Political Sciences Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences), Prof. Mirosława Marody (Social Studies Institute of the Warsaw University), Aleksander Smolar (President of the Batory Foundation) and Artur Wołek (Nowy Sącz School of Business — National Louis University). The action's partners included: Polish Donors Forum, National Federation of Non-Governmental Organizations, Polish Green Network, SPLOT Network of Information and Support for Non-Governmental Organizations, Association for the Forum of Non-Governmental Initiatives, Working Community of Associations of Social Organizations, Union of Citizens Advice Bureaus. The media patronage was given by Gazeta Wyborcza, Polityka weekly, Polish Press Agency, Polish Public Radio, Association of Local Newspapers, regional network of public television, portals: www.ngo.pl and www.opoka.org.pl Pre-election monitoring of the public TV news programsFrom October 16, 2006, we ran a pilot project of the monitoring of the news programming of the public television (TVP) before local government elections. The monitoring covered the main editions of the news shows Wiadomości (TVP1, 19:30) and Panorama (TVP2, 22:30) as well as local news shows of TVP3 aired at 18:00 in five cities: Białystok, Gdańsk, Cracow, Szczecin, and Warsaw. Each show was rated by three observers, with the average of the rates becoming the final score. The observers recorded the duration of the election coverage, its placement in the program, the number and duration of quotes from candidates per main political parties. They also similarly rated other election material that in their view influenced voter decisions. In the qualitative observation, they rated editorial material, taking into consideration the tone, level of detail, comprehension, balance, topicality and bias. The scheme of observation was based on the experiences of international organizations that monitor elections: Council of Europe, European Union, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe described in textbooks for NGOs: Monitoring Election Campaign Finance published in 2005 by the Open Society Institute and Media Monitoring to Promote Democratic Elections published by American National Democratic Institute in 2002. The project took place between October 16 and the election blackout on November 12, 2006 and between the first and second round of voting on November 26 — in places where the second round was organized. The Beata Pawlak AwardThe Beata Pawlak Award was established pursuant to the last will of Beata Pawlak, a Polish journalist killed on October 12, 2002 in a terrorist attack on the Indonesian island of Bali. It is awarded annually for an article or series of articles on foreign cultures, religions and civilizations. The prize is financed from the Fund named after the journalist, administered by the Foundation. In 2006, the Beata Pawlak Award was given to Beata Pawlikowska for a book: A Blondie in Cuba. On the Trail of Truth and Ernesto Che Guevara (National Geographic, 2006) and Paweł Smoleński for Israel Doesn't Fly Anymor (Czarne Publishing House, 2006). This time the awards were financed by ZNAK Publishing Office. On October 17 in the Batory Foundation's seat an award ceremony took place accompanied by a discussion: Conflict of Civilizations or Clash of Ignorants?The End of Domination of the West? with participation of Krzysztof Iszkowski (Dziennik. Polska-Europa-Świat), Adam Leszczyński (Gazeta Wyborcza weekly), Adam Szostkiewicz (Polityka weekly) and Joanna Tokarska-Bakir (Institute of Apllied Social Sciences Warsaw University) and an exhibition of photos by Tomasz Mazur, Indian Mosaic. Program was financed from a grant by the Open Society Institute Program costsGrants and a prize: PLN 2 317 011,20
Grants
Copyright © Fundacja Batorego
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