The major new program of 2008 meant for Environmental Partnership a great honour and challenge at the same time. After a successful tendering process and signing the contract with the EEA/Norwegian Financial Mechanism Office in March 2008, together with its partners – Autonomia Foundation, the Foundation for Democratic Rights (DemNet) and the Carpathian Foundation – HEPF manages the NGO Fund between 2008 and 2011.
The NGO Fund aims at strengthening civil society in the four priority areas of the Financial Mechanism. Based on their expertise each managing foundation is responsible for a different thematic area: Autonomia for social cohesion, and health and childcare, DemNet for civil liberties and capacity building, Carpathian Foundation for cultural heritage and HEPF for environment protection and sustainable development.
Managing the NGO Fund meant a new experience in HEPF’s practice in several respects: both the overall budget and the size of the individual grants exceeds beyond the foundation’s other grant programs. As a consortium leader, besides being responsible for one thematic area, HEPF coordinates the work of three other foundations as well. Also, this is our first fully on-line grant program, available at the specially designed www.norvegcivilalap.hu website.
The NGO Fund has a grant budget of almost 6 million €, which are distributed in two rounds in 2008 and 2009. In the first round, organised and contracted during spring and summer, out of the 953 proposals received, 95 were supported in four thematic areas and in two categories (micro - 5-25,000 and macro grants - 25-80,000 EUR). To promote the call and to give assistance, a series of information forums in each county capital (18) was organised, with the help of the local Civil Service Centers, but the foundations were also available through e-mail, phone and in person throughout the whole application period until the 9th of June. During the information forums, from the questions and also from the content of the proposals it became clear that the thinking of NGOs over the past couple of years has been rather sadly but strongly influenced by the administrative attitude of the EU and state funds: they now rather think in terms of rules and regulation than in projects and activities.
After closing and evaluating the experience of the first round, and in order to improve the procedures of the next, the managing foundations conducted a questionnaire survey among the applicants in October. The results reinforced the impression that the management of the NGO Fund is a success: the flexibility, transparency and applicant-friendliness were greatly appreciated by most. Concrete suggestions for improvement were incorporated in the call and procedures of the second round – to be opened in early 2009.
