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 public interest defense.
Within the Response Hub, you can apply for support through the following four strings:
1) Knowledge building
- Policy work: Support for hiring individual experts in capacity building/research whose goal 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 in which 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 establishment of new spaces as points of your mutual collaboration and networking.
4) Emergency core funding
- Office rent/utilities: In case you face shortterm difficulties in financing your office rent, we can help through short-term support for office rent costs, 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 the following features:
- proclaimed democratic and inclusive goals and values, respect of human dignity, human rights, freedom of expression, equality, rule of law; nondiscriminatory practices in their written or verbal communication;
- potential for growth and societal impact, as well as potential to reach and empower ordinary citizens to fight societal apathy;
- active work and visibility in the public and online domains;
- focus on the protection of public interests or public goods – including diverse issues as: improved public transportation, housing policies, environment, fair elections, rule of law, etc;
- explicit promotion of active citizenship (mobilization and inclusion of the broader population, 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 applicant should fill in an application form (the link can be found here) and provide:
- Statute (in case of formal civic groups, local initiatives and movements), OR in case of informal civic groups, local initiatives and movements – a written statement* signed by its 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;
- Total requested budget.
*The form of the written statement can be downloaded here.
2) Following a review of submitted applications, shortlisted applicants are required to provide:
- Detailed description of the problem you aim to solve with EFB support;
- Description of the action which requires 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. All activities supported through the Response Hub need to be implemented by the end of 2021.
During the evaluation of the project, the following criteria will be observed:
- Profile of the applicant
- Visibility and engagement
- Relevance of the problem
- Consistency and urgency of the action
- Result and impact
The deadline for the application is September 24, 2021 (until midnight). On September 28, all applicants will be informed about the evaluation results, and shortlisted applicants will be invited to submit the second, detailed, application by October 8.
For all questions related to the call for applications, please write to the following email address: responsehub@balkanfund.org
