Stronger Roots for Civil Society in V4 countries

ongoing

For more than a decade, civil society in the Visegrad region has been confronted by a rising tide of populism that encourages polarization and has made concerted efforts to shrink the civic space while curbing fundamental EU rights and the rule of law. The impact of the Covid pandemic and the outbreak of other crises like the Russian invasion of Ukraine have only intensified these trends. In this project, a consortium of five independent organizations with more than 30 years of experience from working in the region - Open Society Fund Prague, Open Society Foundation Bratislava, the Stefan Batory Foundation, the NIOK Foundation and Glopolis - focus on strengthening the roots of civil society in Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland by empowering them to actively reach out to people and partners. By using proven concepts of social base building and network collaboration and a tested methodology that combines financial, expert and peer support, we will address the key issues of acquiring more stable funding, improved connectedness with their constituencies and how to approach an overall organizational transformation in ways that contribute to the strengthened sustainability of civil society organizations, while increasing their resilience and agility. Within the project we will provide financial support to the app. 100 individual CSOs and 20 networks (amounting to more than 3 million Euro) combined with intensive capacity building programs (including mentoring, consultancy and 39 training or mutual learning sessions) which will strengthen their long-term capacities to establish lasting relationships with their communities of supporters and partners. Furthermore, we will share best practice through another 35 events, toolkits and case studies throughout the civil society sectors. Through the activities, we expect to address at least 3640 direct beneficiaries and actively engage tens of thousands of people in CSO activities, strengthening the democracy across the region.