Grants and Assistance

Implementing Partner Grants

ISC is implementing its CSAI Program in partnership with the following organizations: Civic Initiatives (CI), the Balkan Community Initiatives Fund (BCIF), the European Center for Non-Profit Law (ECNL), and Smart Kolektiv.

Advocacy in Practice Grants

Advocacy in Practice grants are awarded to Serbian civil society organizations for the implementation of advocacy projects which are specific and concrete and focused on bringing about change through action.

Through June 2009 ISC awarded grants to 31 CSOs under this program line.

Innovation Funds Grants

ISC’s Innovation Fund is a flexible rolling grant mechanism designed to address compelling, and/or urgent initiatives deemed highly relevant to our program and likely to contribute significantly to overall program impact. The fund enables us to respond to critical windows of opportunity, and is designed as a highly competitive mechanism, with clear, rigorous, and transparent qualification criteria applied to each project submitted for funding. Grants awarded from the Innovation Fund support one-time projects or activities that address a time-sensitive, compelling, or urgent need or opportunity for NGOs to come together with others and take action at a critical moment with potential for extraordinary results.  The Innovation Fund will also be available to support grants to NGOs and NGO coalitions creating a more enabling environment for civil society, philanthropy initiatives, and media messages that increase awareness of the results of citizen participation, and cross-border networking.

ISC supported 3 innovation funds Grants in total through June 2009.

European Integration Grants

Recent elections affirmed Serbian citizens’ support for a pro-European political platform and desire for eventual accession into the European Union.  CSOs have an important role to play in further advancing the kinds of policies and practices that will move Serbia closer to Europe.   With this recent mandate from the public, Serbian civil society organizations have an immediate opportunity to take direct action to prove their value to society by advocating on issues that citizens care about, and that support Serbia’s path to EU Accession. 

CSAI’s strategy in year three is to further promote the importance of Serbia’s integration into the European Union and to educate citizens about how their aspirations and interests are best served by a reform-minded and democratic Serbia.  In particular, we will support activities to strengthen the link for citizens between CSO work and advocacy that advances Serbia’s European integration. ISC started this program line in Year 3 of CSAI program and awarded 1 grant so far.

Grassroots Advocacy Grants

The Grassroots Advocacy grants served as an important backbone to the CSAI in the first two years of the program, in their promotion of citizen activism at the local level. This program aimed to encourage active participation of citizens in addressing issues in their communities. Through the Active Communities program, BCIF/CSAI supported concrete and creative initiatives to address shared issues in communities. Grants were given for projects involving local ideas and resources. The results of these projects demonstrated that positive changes do not always depend on large resources. At the same time, successful activities also serve to build community confidence and capacity.

Because communities face a range of different issues and of capacities to offer solutions, this program was designed to provide maximum flexibility. Issues eligible for support through this program included: ecological problems, work with children and youth, help to elderly and persons with disabilities, and encouraging active participation in decision-making. Through the selection process, special attention was paid to activities that demonstrated the potential to tap into local financial or in-kind support and included a range of stakeholders. BCIF experience has demonstrated that the active participation of different stakeholders enables more creative, complete and sustainable solutions. In years one and two of CSAI, ISC supported through BCIF 57 Grassroots Advocacy grants in 41 cities throughout Serbia.

Advanced Community Advocacy Program (ACAP)

In year two of CSAI, we introduced the Advanced Community Advocacy Program (ACAP), designed to further develop the advocacy capacity of community-based organizations. Advanced Community Advocacy Program builds on successful GRAGs, but also offers  opportunities for a wide range of mid-level CSOs that have continuously demonstrated the potential to scale up their activities for broader impact.

17 ACAP Grants were awarded so far through CSAI Program.

Trainings

The Core Advocacy, Tailor Made Assistance and Mobile Advocacy School components are the cornerstone of CSAI’s training program, which has involved more than 530 NGO leaders and activists from top-assessed civic organizations selected through ISC/CSAI’s competitive process.

• The goal of the ISC Core Advocacy course is to prepare civic organizations for effective advocacy initiatives. Further along the way, the process consists of tailor-made trainings, and an innovative concept of direct and intensive assistance in planning, implementing and monitoring of advocacy activities supported by ISC/CSAI through Advocacy in Practice (AIP) grants.

  Core trainings and tailor-made technical assistance are exclusively based on M&E research responding to needs identified though the Advocacy Index and SATT Index administered to AIP grantees. Initial grantee scores on both indices are used to design targeted interventions that address grantees’ priority needs in advocacy and coalition building, as well as in key aspects of organizational development.

• Mobile Advocacy School (MAS) is designed to strengthen citizen capacity in local communities around Serbia to plan for and implement effective advocacy campaigns on issues of critical importance to Serbia’s continued democratic development.
  
  MAS is designed to enable greater access to ISC’s capacity-building expertise for leading local and regional citizens’ associations in ethnically mixed and economically undeveloped communities. ISC’s hands-on curriculum is designed to foster increased citizen participation and initiate local civic networks that can be mobilized easily and effectively to address important local and regional issues.
• ISC implements its training program in cooperation with Advocacy Resource Persons (ARPs). The Institute has created and trained the diverse and mobile team of consultants of Advocacy Resource Persons with significant advocacy experience and impressive skills.
  
  The ARP team represents a core group of Serbian trainers and civil society professionals able to provide the sector with top-flight training, technical assistance, and consulting around advocacy.