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Annual Report 2007

Your Vote, Your Choice

The program's goal is to increase public interest in local affairs and encourage participation in public life, including informed and responsible participation in local and parliamentary elections. We organize social and awareness campaigns. We work with local organizations assisting them in undertaking activities that help to mobilize civic participation, build dialogue between constituents and their representatives in local governments, as well as integrate local communities and mobilize them to solve local problems.

Your vote, your choice. Local government is yours!

We planned the project, implemented jointly with the School of Leaders Association, for 2006-2010, i.e. the entire term of local authorities elected in 2006. We want to contribute to stimulating public debate on local issues with the participation of residents and local authorities, and reinforce the feeling of joint responsibility among the authorities and residents for decisions made on the election day.
We invited non-governmental organizations and informal groups from around the entire country to join the project. The organizations willing to participate registered at the project portal www.maszglos.pl and undertook to implement a set of tasks aimed to stimulate civic participation and build dialogue with local authorities, including organization of public debates with the participation of residents and local authorities as well as recording and following up on the monitoring of campaign promises made by heads of villages and city mayors in 2006. All participants were offered technical and financial support including a cycle of training meetings, consultations and expert advice, instruction and promotional materials, as well as microgrants for implementation of tasks related to the project. The project’s site served as an interactive platform for exchange of information and experience-sharing among all participants, promotion of the project and dissemination of information on activities carried out on a local level.

In 2007, 226 organizations and informal groups in 150 boroughs joined the project. Participants organized 177 public debates and collected declarations on issues to be solved in the new term from 108 heads of villages and city mayors. In 56 localities, the organizations checked how these declarations were implemented and informed the residents about their findings. All reports on the activities performed by the participants were posted on the project’s webpage. Some of them were financed from grants made to 44 organizations.
The School of Leaders Association organized for project’s participants 70 regional workshops and a national seminar on the rules of cooperation with local authorities and methods of monitoring their commitments. Altogether 140 people took part in these trainings. We also facilitated the contacts with local authorities and media, provided consultations regarding the responsibilities and tasks of local government and on legal regulations, and ran an Internet page that served as a forum for exchange of information and experience. More information about the project is available at www.maszglos.pl.

Change the country. Vote!

Before the parliamentary elections of October 21, a group of civic organizations set up the October21.pl coalition which launched a national public campaign aimed to encourage young people to go to the polls. Initiated by Civic Development Forum, Stefan Batory Foundation, Leviathan Polish Confederation of Private Employers and Association of Advertising Agencies the coalition consisted of Center for Citizens Education, Forum for Non-governmental Initiatives, Foundation for Freedom, Institute of Public Affairs, School of Leaders Association, The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity, Union of Public Relations Agencies and over 150 local non-governmental organizations from across all of Poland. The PZL advertising agency, based on the results of qualitative research, created two slogans, Change the country. Vote! and Parliament – do-it-yourself. Photographer Tomasz Sikora provided the Make a choice, don't cave in television ads. Universal Mc Cann and CR Media Consulting S.A. media houses provided media campaign coordination.
Campaign materials were published free of charge by: public and private TV channels (TVP, TVN, TVN 24, Polsat, MTV, Viva), radio stations (Polish Radio, Radio Zet, Radiostacja, RMF, TOK FM), national dailies (Dziennik, Fakt, Gazeta Wyborcza, Przegląd Sportowy) and weeklies (Angora, Gala, Newsweek), regional dailies (Dziennik Wschodni, Echo Dnia, Gazeta Współczesna, Gazeta Lubuska, Gazeta Pomorska, Głos Szczeciński, Głos Koszaliński, Kurier Poranny, Nowa Trybuna Opolska, Nowiny) and internet portals (Wirtualna Polska, gazeta.pl, Onet.pl, O2, ngo.pl). Local media also supported the campaign.
Posters, stamps and stickers were disseminated locally by students from schools participating in the Young People Vote project coordinated by the Center for Citizenship Education, as well as by non-governmental organizations that had joined the October21.pl coalition (materials were distributed to 900 towns). In 18 cities in 33 academic centers, 16,640 students took part in the primaries organized by the Project Poland Foundation, the Polish Student Parliament and several other student organizations. The campaign webpage, designed by Tribal DDB, which contained downloadable campaign and voting materials, received 310,000 unique hits. Internet users also took an active part in creating their own Internet banners with the use of the tool on the campaign website. Over 51,000 banners with original slogans encouraging people to vote were designed. The page received the Webstar award from the Internet Academy for the best public service page in 2007. Election turnout neared 54%, the highest since 1989. Among voters 20-40 years old, the campaign's target group, the growth in turnout was quite dramatic, with over 48% of that age cohort voting, whereas 32% voted in 2005. The public opinion polls made by Millward Brown SMG/KRC on a representative sample of Poles above 15 demonstrated that our campaign had reached almost 69% of the population. The research made by Polish General Electoral Studies on a representative group of Poles that took part in the elections showed that our campaign had convinced or encouraged to vote 20% of voters, i.e. 3.3 million people, and only 6% of voters have not heard of it. Research confirmed that the campaign had been non-partisan, as had been intended by the organizers, and had fulfilled its goal to make voters aware that every vote counts. More information about the campaign is available at campaign website: www.21pazdziernika.pl.

In 2007, the program was financed by funds from Open Society Institute, including a grant from Human Rights and Governance Grants Program, OSI-Budapest.

Program costs

Grants PLN 233,606.42
Campaign costs PLN 285,018.16
Total program costs PLN 518,624.58

Grants 2007

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