The European Fund for the Balkans has established the Response Hub as an instrument of micro financial support to civic groups, local initiatives, and movements in the Western Balkans. The aim is to provide a flexible response to specific and urgent needs, contributing to impact and sustainability, empowering the claim for accountable institutions, democratic policy processes and to defending the public interest.
Within the Response Hub you can apply for support through four strings:
1) Knowledge building
- Policy work: Support for hiring individual experts for capacity building/research whose aim is to provide purposeful and focused knowledge assistance in a very concrete area of your work and engagement.
- Legal advice: Support for hiring individual experts whose knowledge of institutional and legal mechanisms is valuable in cases where public interest is jeopardized.
2) Outreach/Visibility - technical support
In order to increase the outreach of your work, it is possible to apply for the following activities:
- Developing, designing and printing of information material, reports and studies
- Small video production
- Social media promotion
3) Community spaces
We aim to provide short-term financial support to community spaces, as independent safe places of exchange across the region, where needed. Furthermore, we will support the setting up of new spaces as points of your mutual collaboration and networking.
4) Emergency core funding
- Office rent/utilities: In case you face shortterm difficulties to finance you office rent, we can help with short-term support for office rents, utilities, bills in specific cases.
- Digital tools: financial support for certain digital tools and platforms (internet bills, annual subscriptions for cloud storage, Zoomlike platforms, etc,)
- Basic technical equipment: covering essential office and work equipment, such as laptop or scanner.
You can apply for more than one string.
Eligibility
The Response Hub aims to support formal and informal civic groups, local initiatives and movements that:
- have democratic and inclusive proclaimed goals and values, respect human dignity, human rights, freedom of expression, equality, rule of law; and are not discriminatory in their written or verbal communication;
- have potential for growth and societal impact, as well as potential to reach and empower ordinary citizens to fight apathy;
- are active and visible in public and online realm;
- are focused on protection of public interests or public good – including diverse issues as: better public transportation, housing policies, environment, fair elections, rule of law etc;
- are explicitly promoting active citizenship (mobilization and inclusion of wider citizenry, promoting citizens’ engagement and proactivity), and inclusive civic participation in their activities.
Application process
The application is envisaged as a two-step process:
1) In the first step, the respective applicants should fill in an application form (the link can be found here) and provide:
- Statute (in case of an formal civic groups, local initiatives and movements), OR in case of informal civic groups, local initiatives and movements a written statement* signed by your representative;
- Short written presentation (up to 350 words) on the content of your work, sources of financing, explaining what type of support you require from EFB;
- Links to website or social media content that cover your activities;
- Overall requested budget.
*The form of the written statement can be downloaded here.
2) Following a review of submitted applications, shortlisted applicants will provide:
- Detailed description of the problem you want to solve with EFB support;
- Description of the action for which you need support;
- Results you expect to achieve with the support;
- Detailed budget.
The minimum amount that one applicant can apply for is 1000 EUR, and the maximum amount is 5000 EUR.
During the evaluation of the project, following criteria will be followed:
- Profile of the applicant
- Visibility and engagement
- Relevance of the problem
- Consistency and urgency of the action
- Result and impact
For all questions related to the next call for application, please write to the following email address: responsehub@balkanfund.org.
The European Fund for the Balkans (EFB) has been working for more than a decade on encouraging regional cooperation, EU integration, and strengthening citizens' participation in political and social processes in all countries in our region. The EFB has now recognised the growth of a new type of civic activism in recent years and the need for a greater focus of our activities on support and cooperation with civic groups, local initiatives and movements.
