“TEN YEARS OF CIVIL SOCIETY SUPPORT IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE: CHALLENGES FOR BUILDING SUPPORT INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE REGION” ROUND-TABLE DISCUSSION WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF GRANTMAKING ORGANISATIONS 12 November 2000, Warsaw, Poland MINUTES Participants: Representatives of grantmaking organisations: Mark Levinson, US Agency for International Development, USA Joan Williams-Grube Institute for Sustainable Communities, Bulgaria Yevhen Bystrytsky, International Renaissance Foundation, Ukraine Shannon Lawder, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Czech Republic Nick Deychakiwsky, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Czech Republic Sylwia Sobiepan, Stefan Batory Foundation, Poland Sara Eisinger, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, USA Gys van der Ham, Prins Culturfond, the Netherlands Georgi Genchev, Open Society Foundation – Sofia, Bulgaria Svetoslav Naoumov, Bulgarian NGO Resource Centre Foundation, Bulgaria Marieta Tzvetkova, Institute for Sustainable Development, Bulgaria John Richardson, European Foundation Centre Eric Kemp, European Foundation Centre Agnieszka Sawczuk, European Foundation Centre Nyegosh Dube, European Foundation Centre Representatives of infrastructure organisations: Alicia Shybitskaya, United Way Belarus, Belarus Igor Zagoumennov, Support Center for Associations and Foundations (SCAF), Belarus Natalia Yakavets, Support Center for Associations and Foundations (SCAF), Belarus Marek Sedivy, Information Center for Foundation and Other Not-for-Profit Organisations (ICN), Czech Republic Radojka Tomasevic, Stope Nade, Croatia Nino Saakashvili, Horizonti – the Foundation for the Third Sector, Georgia Vaidotas Ilgius, NGO Information and Support Centre (NISC), Lithuania Alina Niculita, CONTACT Centre, Moldova Charles Lasham, International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), Moldova Ina Gutium, International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), Moldova Srdjan Brajovic, Centre for Development of Non-Governmental Organisations, Montenegro Pawel Jordan, Support Office for the Movement of Self-Help Initiatives (BORIS), Poland Zbigniew Wejcman, Support Office for the Movement of Self-Help Initiatives (BORIS), Poland Eliza Lupascu, Civil Society Development Foundation, Romania Raluca Negulescu, Assistance Centre for Non-Governmental Organisations (CENTRAS), Romania 1

Oana Tiganescu, Civil Society Development Foundation, Romania Katarina Kostalova, Slovak Academic Information Agency – Service Center for the Third Sector (SAIA-SCTS), Slovakia Olexander Cheredayko, Resource Center for NGO Development (GURT), Ukraine Anna Wojakowska, Association for the Forum of Non-Governmental Initiatives (IFP), Poland Yurij Usovich, Center for Humane Technologies “AHALAR”, Ukraine Tatiana Monayeva, Donetsk Regional Center “Spriyannya”, Ukraine Lyudmila Litvin, Community Initiatives Charity Foundation, Russia Valbona Petoshati, Albanian Civil Society Foundation, Albania Mihail Lisetchi, Agency for Information and Development of Non-governmental Organizations (AID –ONG), Romania I. OBJECTIVES OF THE MEETING The objective of the round-table discussion was to take stock of civil society support with particular focus on building the infrastructure over the past ten years. The participants met to identify key lessons learned, emerging issues that need to be addressed, and to strategize for the future. They touched upon the main challenges for the development of civil society in the region, including: developing initiatives that promote financial and human resources sustainability, strengthening infrastructure organisations that provide services for NGOs and donors, and establishing high-quality partnership between donors and their partners in the region. The participants also discussed new opportunities that need to be developed and nurtured among major players on the civil society scene on already established long-term partnerships. They also touched upon the ways to bring partners willing to develop viable strategies for positioning infrastructure organisations as important players in the region so that they can play a policy and leadership in their respective countries but also on regional as well as European level. II. ORPHEUS CIVIL SOCIETY NETWORK Katarina Kostalova, chair of the Orpheus Civil Society Advisory Board, opened the meeting. She introduced the Orpheus Civil Society Network – network of information and resource centres – existing to promote civil society development in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Newly Independent States (NIS). It is a decentralised and open network of information and support organisations serving foundations, associations and other not-for-profit organisations. As noted by an independent survey carried out in 1997 by the Charities Evaluation Service, NGO information and resource centres have played a critical role in non-profit sector development. Launched in 1994, the Orpheus Civil Society Network has grown steadily with increasing participation of new Centres. Presently 27 organisations from the region participate in the Network’s activities. Together with the growing number of members their knowledge and expertise have grown. Having started with activities aimed at strengthening the centres’ own skills, the Network is now focusing on development and promotion of civil society both in their countries and also at European level.

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The Centres provide services in five key areas: - information and communication including information about funding from foundations, corporates and other sources; - training and other educational programmes; - advocacy of a positive legal and fiscal environment for the sector; - mediation within the non-profit sector; and - partnership building. The Network is owned and driven entirely by the needs and participation of the Centres and assisted by the Orpheus CSP Advisory Board composed of the members from the Network, who provide guidance and shape the Network’s initiatives. Beginning from 2000 the new structure of the Network was introduced. The Network will now be composed of two types of members: - Orpheus CSP Centres – responsible for establishing priorities of the Network and participating in its activities - Orpheus CSP Information Points – will concentrate on distributing information submitted by the members of the Network through their information channels. European Foundation Centre helped considerably in the development of the Network securing the assistance of the Network Coordinator but also providing solid ground for good partnership and healthy development of the network. The efforts of the Centres are encouraged and strengthened by the Orpheus Civil Society Project (CSP) of the European Foundation Centre (EFC). Launched in 1994, it facilitates the exchange of knowledge and expertise among the Centres and supports their activities, which lead to improving existing services and developing new programmes and partnerships. Orpheus Programme of the European Foundation Centre John Richardson spoke of the genesis of the Orpheus programme. It was first mentioned in the meeting of the Council of Ministers of the European Union, which met Paris in 1992 on the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome. The initial idea was to create a mechanism to develop a public record and a public information service on public and private donors active in Europe. It soon became apparent that the only way forward with this concept was to use the vision and energy of leading Europe’s private foundations, which created the European Foundation Centre (EFC) on 9 November of 1999. From its inception the EFC and its programme was committed to secure full participation of organisations in the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). As it turned out, it was the organisations in CEE that provided much energy enthusiasm and innovation to the centre and to the development of European philanthropy as a whole. The lessons of CEE countries are now being shared with networks in other regions e.g. 6 new centres are being established around the Mediterranean basin. The Orpheus Programme today is facing two principal challenges. The first is opportunities created by the technological revolution, the second the European Union enlargement. To respond to the opportunities and challenges associated with IT, members are considering a European Philanthropy Portal – an enabling vehicle for civil society partnerships. The Portal will go a long way in helping independent donors – their grantees – public bodies at all levels – and European

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citizens to work, think, communicate and make policy together. The portal will still need to be complemented by classic networking, convening and advocacy. People, especially policy makers need and will need to meet, shake hands and look each other in the eye. To this end the EFC is developing a Partnership for European Union Enlargement – a new initiative to bring together independent donors, associations, public authorities at all levels to enable them to radically rethink how we build Europe. III. ROLE OF INFRASTRUCTURE ORGANISATIONS IN THE REGION Pawel Jordan spoke of the infrastructure organisations and their contribution to building and strengthening of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe in the last decade, without which many democratisation and transformation processes would not have even started. The main components of the resource centre work are the following: 1. The Mission of a resource centre is to foster building civil society, through support of development on non-profit organisations and other citizen activities. 2. There are over 100 resource centres operating in the region. The main services rendered by these centres include a) information and communication, b) advice and consultation, c) training and other educational programmes. 3. The main functions of the resource centre include a) providing support to non-profit organisations, b) launch innovative initiatives and projects, c) educate NGO leaders and their partners, d) integrate and build partnerships among non-profit organisations, e) empower citizens to undertake initiatives for the betterment of their lives, f) build partnerships with other sectors (government and business). 4. Target groups of the resource centre include different actors of civil society. They are working not only with NGOs but with the whole environment in which NGOs function including: citizens, business, representatives of public authorities, mass media, educational institutions. 5. The role of the resource centre is to be a service provide, policymaker (as opposed to representing the NGO sector), facilitator (as opposed to a leader). 6. Funding. The budget of the average centre comprises two main categories: grants (80-90%) and other contributions such as from local government and the corporate sector, incomegenerating activities (10-20%). The funding of resources centres varies and depends on the scope of undertaken activities, provided services and the range of the target group. Welldeveloped centres reach annual funding at the level of US$150,000 – 200,000, smaller centres report having budgets of around US$20,000. 7. The main problem areas for the centre nowadays are: developing bureaucratic structures, insufficient provision of services (poor quality of services), undertaking donor-driven as opposed to demand-driven activities, insufficient capacity building of centres (including facilitating long-term planning, networking opportunities). 8. Development and sustainability of NGO resource centre depends on successfully meeting many challenges. They include: – Continuous monitoring of NGO needs – effective system of NGO needs assessment; – Developing high quality and strategically coherent services delivery to target communities; – Building human resources of the centre; – Establishing strong relationships with the public and private sectors;

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– Implementing innovative models and approaches as well as an incubator function for new services and initiatives; – Fostering strategic development of national networks of resource centres; – Providing reference points for donors, the public at large and other institutions; – Increasing credibility within the NGO sector; – Ensuring diversified funding. IV. CHALLENGES FACING THE INFRASTRUCTURE ORGANISATIONS - DISCUSSION 1. Building partnerships among funders and infrastructure organisations John Richardson noted that at the Grantmakers East Group (GEG) Annual Meeting held on 10-11 November in Warsaw, in which over 100 grantmakers participated, it was emphasised that civil society is often connected with NGOs, but it is much more. Civil society also includes government institutions, judiciary. NGOs are indeed salt in the soup of the civil society. Therefore resource centres reaching out also to other players will satisfy wishes and needs of donors. Good partnerships are not only about money but it is about thinking and acting together. Mark Levinson noted that some funders, due to the fact that they do not have a permanent presence in the region need to be updated about the new developments in the region so that they can make good judgements and funding policy can be adapted to the country needs. In this way a partnership of equals can be created. Eric Kemp spoke of the changing map that concerns the foundation world. Foundations are not what they used to be. Before we knew only endowed foundations, now there are many foundations which do not have endowments but re-grant other funders’ money. These foundations are now looking for partners to leverage these funds. Many organisations make serious attempts to endow their organisations. There are already some successful examples in the Czech Republic and Poland. Nowadays resource centres are serving this diversified foundation community with very different needs. In order that to meet these needs the centres need to know what is that the funders need. The funders have a different perspective from that of the centres. Their knowledge is essential for the centres to better understand the needs of the NGO community in their respective countries. The money is there, but mechanisms of distributing it at the national level are not. 2. Areas of work of infrastructure organisations Shannon Lawder noted that the issue of poverty and social exclusion, neglected in American funding, was raised at the GEG meeting and suggested that it might be taken on board as an innovative project of some resource centres. Shannon explained that the centres are working on the ground and know best what are the needs of their communities. Yevhen Bystrytsky explained that in Ukraine public policy activities empowering NGOs to become players in the activities is one of the crucial issues that resource centres could get involved in.

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Georgi Genchev noted that one of the areas the centres could help funders with is to maintain good library collections on the NGO sector in the respective countries and be able to research needs of NGOs and citizens at a request. He added that providing legal and fiscal counselling is of a great importance in Bulgaria. 3. Challenges of infrastructure organisations a) All-purpose organisations: Nick Deychakivsky pointed out that the potential danger for the centres could be to undertake many activities in order to serve many clients. The all-purpose organisations, which were, indeed, needed at the beginning, now seem to be narrowing their scope of work in order to professionalise their services to serve clearly defined target groups. Nino Saakashvili said that NGOs’ needs are changing; as a result some organisations and some type of activities might disappear in the future, if the services provided are not needed. Therefore NGOs should not take a lead in all possible areas but limit their activities and strengthen the services they already provide. The centres should also be aware that their role is also to strengthening NGOs by helping them to take over certain initiatives, otherwise they will become monopolists on the NGO scene. Radojka Tomasevic underlined that due to the main challenge of the Croatian resource centre at the moment is insufficient funding. As a result they need to provide a wide range of activities in order to survive. She also added that the reason why NGO resource centres are not that well known and therefore do not easily find sources of funding, could be that NGOs themselves and their work is not that well known to the public at large. Shannon Lawder suggested that assessment of NGO resource centres be undertaken in order to assess whether their services do respond to local needs and what type of services the centres should be rendering. b) Grant distributors: Svetoslav Naoumov underlined that undertaking many different activities helps to sustain a centre as it allows the centre to develop in different directions and allow funds from different sources to sustain the organisation. And also re-granting could be one of the ways to secure sustainability. Katarina Kostalova noted that some centres feel that they should not mix up two roles: service provider (resource centre) and funder (grant distributor). Resource centres should very carefully consider whether and how they would want to get involved in grantmaking as the new role could alter their existing relations with NGOs. There is always a danger to the credibility of the centre if it distributes the money and provides services to the same target group. Nick Deychakivsky noted that the centres’ principal role is to advise NGOs how to solve their organisational, financial and human resources problems. Therefore if a centre also

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plays also the role of funder, it might discourage NGOs from visiting such a centre as they would fear that it will impact their chances of receiving financial support. Vaidotas Ilgius pointed out that some centres provide technical assistance to donors. These centres have extensive knowledge about the NGOs sector and can advise funders what are the areas in which they should invest. By sitting on committees the centres learn the funders’ priorities, find new areas NGOs could become more active in and can advise them as to what types of initiatives they should be undertaking. There needs to be some flexibility within the centres so that they can find their place in the NGO community and play an appropriate role in their particular countries. c) Representation: There was a widespread belief among the participants that centres should encourage creating other bodies to represent different types of NGOs and not represent them themselves. Organisations who would want to represent NGOs will find themselves in a conflict with different types of professional associations. Nick Deychakivsky added that it seems that in some countries there seem to be emerging the 4th sector – citizens. The reason for that is that some organisations disconnect themselves from the NGO sector and its needs and create their own structures. As a result an NGO elite appears. Such a temptation could be a danger to the development of the NGO sector in the respective countries. d) Funding: Olga Alexeeva noted that there are 60 resource centres in Russia, some of which have been artificially supported by funders. These centres are frequently faced with a question “what is your vision for the next 10 years”. The answer does not seem to be easy when it comes to “who is going to pay for this vision?” Should that be the local government – there is a danger that the centres might not be able to secure their independence. Should that be business it will surely want to receive clearly defined services not always corresponding with the mission of the organisation. Income-generating activities might also not be a sustainable source of funding if the services offered by the centres will not be meeting the changing needs of the NGO sector, and introducing new services requires some investments. Vaidotas Ilgius emphasised that the long-term financial sustainability of the resource centres will depend on governments. There is probably no other partner that can secure sustainable development of the centres. Katarina Kostalova thanked all the participants for participating in the meeting and suggested that a similar meeting be organised in the future. Agnieszka Sawczuk, Coordinator of the Orpheus Civil Society Project, European Foundation Centre

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November 2000

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