CEE Solidarity Fund In April 2020, ERSTE Foundation set up the CEE Solidarity Fund as an unbureaucratic hardship fund for small to medium-sized NPOs in Central and SouthEastern Europe. Civil society in Central and South-Eastern Europe is particularly challenged even under normal circumstances. The Covid-19 crisis has further exacerbated these challenges. ERSTE Foundation set up the CEE Solidarity Fund in April 2020 to provide quick and unbureaucratic help in the first particularly uncertain weeks of the crisis. The fund offered a total of EUR 350,000, enabling 68 organisations to overcome liquidity shortages due to Covid-19, transfer their activities to the online world, secure jobs for employees and provide crisis support for disadvantaged communities, for example by introducing hygiene measures. Organisations that were part of the NGO Academy’s active group of participants were eligible to apply. The NGO Academy is a joint project of ERSTE Foundation and the Competence Centre for Nonprofit Organisations and Social Entrepreneurship at Vienna University of Economics and Business. It was founded in 2013 with the aim of strengthening the civil society sector in Central and South-Eastern Europe by providing further educational opportunities. Some of those supported by the CEE Solidarity Fund talk here about their experiences in this difficult year.
ngoacademy.net
How is civil society coping with the pandemic in Central and Eastern Europe? A crisis is first and foremost a crisis. The paradox of the pandemic is that we are supposed to deal with it by staying at home and reducing our contacts, and that it thrusts us back within the borders of the nation state, even though the virus knows no borders or social barriers and the battle can only be won by joint efforts. Unfortunately, Covid-19 narrows our focus and closes borders. The voices from the NGO Academy aim to illustrate how civil society in CEE has coped with the situation. Everywhere the lockdown repercussions were worse than in Austria, where NGOs were able to rely on state support. Everywhere the necessary protective measures and increasing demand for social services created additional costs for NGOs. Hardship and inequality increased due to the pandemic. The NGOs’ revenues collapsed because events had to be postponed or cancelled, and because private donations and membership fees stagnated, without this being compensated in any way by the state or foundations. Many NGOs demonstrated admirable creativity, using the crisis as an opportunity – to invest in digitalisation, provide new services, and develop new fundraising approaches. For others, however, it remained and still remains a crisis. It is precisely in times of crisis that we need projects like the NGO Academy, which transcends borders, transfers knowledge, facilitates exchange and enables the voices from the region’s NGOs to be heard.
MICHAEL MEYER is Head of the Institute for Nonprofit Management and the Competence Centre for Nonprofit Organisations and Social Entrepreneurship of Vienna University of Economics and Business
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