Sustaining civil society impact through social entrepreneurship and innovations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Turkey

Duration: 40 months, starting from December 2015

Smart Start is project co-financed by the European Union, through the Civil Society Facility and Media Programme 2014-2015, Support to regional thematic networks of Civil Society Organizations. The project is led by Centre for Civil Society Promotion (CSSP), and the project partners are Centre for Research and Policy Making (Macedonia), Institute for Entrepreneurship and Economic Development (Montenegro), Centre for Development of Non-Profit Sector (Serbia) and YADA Foundation (Turkey) with support by CEDRA HR (Croatia). The project aims to strengthen CSOs advocacy and networking capacities, improve internal governance structures, diversify funding base through establishment of social entrepreneurship and elaboration of strategic long-term organisational plan. These results are expected to enable a generation of new and more professional CSOs more dedicated to their mission, citizens and society at large as well as partnership of CSOs and the business sector in all 5 countries, bringing mutual benefits to all parties. Overall objective: Objective of this project is to help create an enabling environment for social entrepreneurship of civil society organizations (CSOs) and to improve their sustainability, financial viability and social impact in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey.

Specific objectives are:

1. To strengthen long-term financial sustainability and impact of 50 selected CSOs in the five partner countries through start-up financial support and socially and environmentally responsible use of self-financing strategies, social innovations and social enterprise;
2. To improve the social enterprise-friendly environment through networking of CSOs and other stakeholders, and conducting five national advocacy campaigns;
3. To promote CSO social entrepreneurship and to encourage replication throughout the civil society sector in the region by the sharing of information, lessons learned and by promotion of good practices in CSO self-financing and social enterprise. Target group(s) involve 100 civil society organizations, local governments in 5 countries and 50 companies. Final beneficiaries comprise 5.000+ members of targeted CSOs, 50.000 CSOs in five countries, marginalized and vulnerable citizens.

Partners:

cpcd.jpg

Centre for Civil Society Promotion Centre  for  Civil  Society  Promotion  (CCSP)  is  a  local,  non-governmental,  non-partisan organization, which since its founding in 1996, works on strengthening civil society in B&H and the region. At the same time we build organizational capacity and strengthen own capacities. Our strategic goals in the coming years are the creation of an enabling environment for civil society development; promotion and development of civic engagement and participatory democracy and institutional development of CCSP.

Website: https://civilnodrustvo.ba/

crpm.jpg

The Center for Research and Policy Making is an organization that has a mission to promote good governance and development in Macedonia on the basis of relevant, evidence based policy research, capacity building and trainings, evaluations, analyses and surveys, without regard to and independently of the particular interests of any group of the society, either political, social or economic.

Website: https://www.crpm.org.mk

institut.jpg

Institute for entrepreneurship and economic development is an economic think tank established with the aim to provide support in development of entrepreneurship and private sector in Montenegro. It was founded in 1993 at the Faculty of Economics of University of Montenegro under the name Centre for entrepreneurship and economic development (CEED). Since 1998, it has been operating as independent organization. Within its activities, IPER is carrying out researches at the most important social and economic topics, preparing recommendations from policy development, conducting activities in order to educate entrepreneurs and thus contributing to the improvement of the life quality of Montenegrin citizens.

Website: https://iper.org.me

CRNPS-logo.png

Centre for Development of Non-Profit Sector is a voluntary, independent, non-government and non-profit association of citizens founded for accomplishment of goals in the area of development of civil society and non-profit sector in Serbia, protection and promotion of human and minority rights, education, information, social care and battle against corruption.

Website: https://www.crnps.org.rs

yada.jpg

Yaşama Dair Vakıf was founded in 2005 with a vision of building bridges between “knowledge” and “society”. YADA aims to produce knowledge regarding the different aspects of social life and convert this knowledge into application. YADA conducts its work in Istanbul and Ankara with a team of experts in the fields of political sciences, sociology, communication, statistics, environment and cultural studies.

Website: https://en.yada.org.tr/

cedra.jpg

Cluster for Eco-Social Innovation and Development is a national organization promoting and supporting eco-social entrepreneurship, innovation and development based on the triple bottom line principles (people-planet-profit). It comprises network of local/regional organizations dealing in establishment and provision of services to entrepreneurs, innovators, leaders and change-makers in local communities in Croatia and neighbouring countries.

Website: https://www.cedra.hr/hr/pocetna