In April 2013, a new funding programme of over 36 million euro, 100% dedicated to the civil society was launched in Bucharest - five key areas, three cross-cutting issues, ten horizontal concerns, twelve thematic areas and three organizations that were administrating the programme.

More than 3 years followed, during which the ideas from 390 projects funded started shaping. These were years full of activities proving that for each piece of well-being earned it takes dedication and a strong public - private partnership. Only through an integrated approach community changes can become sustainable and the lack of training and vision waste the unnecessarily resources. The solutions can be applied only if people join their forces and with community organising you can make wonders. Some organizations have surprised us with their creativity and innovation, others with their confidence that things can be better.

Exchange of experiences with organizations and institutions in Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, and with the other 15 countries beneficiaries of EEA grants, were encouraged. Through partnerships, international events and study visits, new concepts and working methods were brought into Romania. Nordic experts with human rights and democracy expertise have worked with the Romanian experts, analysing issues and presenting case studies. They understood better each country’s specific and the models that can be transferred from one country to another. More about de bilateral colaboration along the programme can be found here.

If we would try to present the NGO Fund most important results from each area of interest, we would have an endless enumeration of more or less technical terms. Listing all of them is too much and presenting only some of them is too little.

Beyond all the figures and reports, NGO Fund Programme was about the people. There is a lot to say about the experiences of those 3 million people involved in the projects. About the volunteering hours that gets to 125 years of full time job . There will be always something untold about what happened in those over 400 villages and 100 towns - about those 28 000 people who have benefited from social and basic services and about those over 4,000 interactions with public institutions. This programme is about people who have shaped engagement even when conditions were not very favourable - when mentalities did not help or institutions did not hear them.

There were difficult roads to open, some communities were hard to reach and there are still more mentalities to change. But each project has a story of involvement that starts shaping when there are people willing to dare. We hope that their experiences will be useful in different ways and they will open various roads.  

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The map with the projects funded within the programme can be consulted here.

Details about the projects funded within the program can be found here: First round and the Second round

The programme results summary can be found here.

The brochure ilustrating a part of the most relevant results and best practices can be found here.