ABOUT THE
program

OUR GOALS AND VISION FOR COOPERATION

Why this programme?

We know that young NGOs need support in their fundraising efforts and that there is a lot more fundraising potential in Romania. With this programme, we aim to strengthen the financial sustainability, the strategic fundraising capacity and governance of 12 NGOs working in local and community development, education or in the social sector focused on providing direct social assistance and services to vulnerable or disadvantaged people.

The spirit of the programme

Co-operation and openness, adapted learning, a „patient” journey, an environment of mutual encouragement, useful and tailored tools and focus on action. Vision and action go hand in hand, and good habits support the changes needed for the NGOs to increase their impact.

JOINING THE PROGRAM, THE SUPPORT AND BENEFITS

We aim to provide a complex learning experience, tailored to the the needs of the 12 NGOs in the programme. Here are the main support and learning activities:

1. „Growth Camps” 

The two Growth Camps, the first one to be held in July 2022, are learning events designed by the Synerb team and NorSensus Mediaforum, our Norwegian partner.

During these Growth Camps we will discusss key fundraising topics such as strategic planning, communication, storytelling, strategic institutional fundraising, board development, consortium building, networking and social entrepreneurship.

For example, the first camp will focus on “Strategic planning, communication and strategic fundraising”. We’ll aim to address a number of topics and provide help with (re)defining the strategic vision of the participating organisations, measuring impact, creating programmes and a realistic fundraising plan, and communicating programmes through visual storytelling . We’ll be focusing on three key fundraising elements: how to engage in fundraising with companies, ways to fundraise from individual donors and developing the skills to understand the guidelines of open calls, and finally, how to to write fundable proposals.

The training activities will focus on exploring the main funding opportunities available for Romanian NGOs. We’ll not only provide a theoretical frame of the local sector, but the training activities will also guide the participants to develop their own agile fundraising plan.

In addition, we’ll invite a number of experts and facilitators to these Growth Camps to work with the selected NGO cohort. These are seasoned professionals with significant experience in fundraising, who will help participants to implement their fundraising plan or provide help with understanding various fundraising segments – e.g. fundraising from individual donors.

Each Growth Camp will have a duration of 2.5 days. The learning events will take place in a quiet rural or peri-urban location, easily accessible to all participants.

2. Direct support and mentoring from the Synerb team

The direct support programme will begin shortly after the first Growth Camp.

There will be three common, yet practical ways of providing patient and consistent support to each NGO from the cohort:

1) one-to-one mentoring, with a frequency adjusted to the individual needs of each NGO (but at least once a month), on key topics such as strategic fundraising, strategic leadership and communication.

2) providing feedback and guidance on each NGOs project ideas/ applications, on donor presentations and other strategic documents.

3) providing technical support in creating practical tools tailored to the needs of the NGOs from the cohort.

This support phase lasts 18 months.Throughout the support sessions planned for this period, we’ll help the NGO leaders to develop the skills and courage to write good funding proposals, to attract additional funding, to develop a management or advisory board and the key strategic fundraising areas that will eventually increase their performance. We will co-create an agile fundraising system and track results together.

3. External Mentoring.

Once we determine the specific needs of each organization from the program, we will carry out a “matching process” with one or several external mentors enrolled in our program (check out the list of mentors here). Depending on the complexity of each NGO’s needs and their mapped difficulties, participants can choose to attend a number of 1, 3, 6, or 9 mentoring sessions.

4. Working visits.

We know that face-to-face meetings can be more productive. In the 10th month of the project, we will organise a field visit at the premise of each NGO or in the communities where they operate.

The aim of the field visits is to extend our support to the teams of each NGO, through a series of group conversations or micro-trainings, depending on their needs and requests. We are aware these plans may change, depending on how the pandemic evolves and that we might need to explore alternative support solutions.

CRITERIA AND SELECTION PROCESS

Selection criteria

Here are the three types of criteria we will use in our selection process.

I. Minimum eligibility criteria – assessed with a YES or NO:

1. Annual budget less than or equal to EUR 50,000

2. Team size – minimum two people committed, volunteers, employees, members or co-founders

3. At least two relevant projects carried out, with clear activities and convincing/relevant results

4. Vision and relevant impact track record exists, for a target group clearly identified and described in the organization’s mission, vision and program descriptions.

5. The organization is active in the field of local and community development, the social sector or the educational sector, as per the definition below.

Local and community development:

Organizations operating in rural settings or in a small city/town, or urban settings, that are committed to revitalize their communities through one-time or complex programs or initiatives that address the needs of the local communities. Examples: local economic development that encourages innovation or tourism, supporting job creation, increasing local civic engagement, creating/managing a community hub/centre, developing solutions for the community to access basic services (e.g. financial, transportation etc.), enhancing and promoting local traditions that may directly or indirectly contribute to the local community development, etc. Cultural organisations implementing programmes to develop their local communities are eligible depending on the impact type and nature of their activities. These organisations must demonstrate that they are enablers of medium to long term change and their activities are not limited to organising one-off events, regardless of the scale of these events.

Social.

Organisations providing direct support, assistance or social services – accredited or on an occasional basis – to disadvantaged or vulnerable groups. Examples: NGOs that implement programmes or provide services for the elderly, children, immigrants, people with disabilities, etc. Cultural organisations implementing programmes for a disadvantaged or a vulnerable social group are eligible only if the social activity is an important part of the organisation’s global vision: e.g. theatre for/with people with disabilities or any artistic form/product/programme/service that can improve the condition and lives of vulnerable or disadvantaged people.

Education.

Organisations providing non-formal or alternative educational programmes to disadvantaged or vulnerable people. Examples: quality trainings or courses for young people to help them with finding a job, courses for immigrants, training/reskiling courses for the elderly and/or other beneficiaries.

! Private schools and educational initiatives that aim to develop services, programmes and/or activities exclusively for their non-vulnerable beneficiaries, organisations building a private educational infrastructure/platform accessible only by users who can afford to pay substantial enrollment or participation fees are NOT eligible under this programme. Synerb reserves the right to request additional information about the beneficiaries of private educational institutions.

6. The organisation does NOT participate / it is NOT enrolled in / did NOT receive a final acceptance letter/response to participate in another accelerator/program funded by ACF with a deliberate focus on strengthening financial sustainability / fundraising capacity or organizational development that includes a consistent fundraising capacity building module.

7. When submitting the form, the organization must agree with the GDPR terms, the terms and privacy policy, the terms of participation in the program, must also confirm that it has met its legal and tax obligations (self-reported data), and it is not in a risk situation with their organizational management or governance, and it is not incompatible or in opposition with the ACF program and/or the terms of collaboration with Synerb, as described below.

• “That my personal data submitted through this form will be processed by Synerb Venture Catalyzer, in accordance with Synerb’s General Privacy Policy and in accordance with the Terms and Conditions of Use of the Platform and respecting the provisions of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 on the protection of individuals with regards to their personal data processing and on the free movement of such data and according to the Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation), which has direct applicability in all Member States, including Romania, as of 25 May 2018, by completing this questionnaire, I consent to the use and processing of my personal data by Synerb Venture Catalyzer, as a legal entity, Fiscal Code: 41428935, Timișoara, str. Banatul nr. 1, for the purpose of evaluating my application for the participation in the Visionary program. I am aware of these conditions and I can also contact at any time the person designated within Synerb for the management of these personal data at zoltan@synerb.org, Zoltan Bereczki.”
• “If my organisation is selected to participate in the Visionary programme, I agree to appoint a person to participate in all the activities of the programme (camps, mentoring sessions, proposal writing for funds, events, meetings with external mentors, etc., as described in detail in the programme conditions), I will sign a cooperation agreement with Synerb, having the opportunity to negotiate and discuss my rights and obligations in advance.”
• “My organisation has fulfilled all its legal and fiscal obligations, is not under judiciary liquidation and it is not in a critical internal governance or management situation – such as compromised relationship between founders, board and executive team, insurmountable conflicts between the General Assembly and the executive team, etc. – and that, in its work, my organisation respects the values of the ACF programme and Synerb.”
• “If more than 50% of my organisation’s budget originates from legal entities that directly produce and sell fire arms, ammunition, explosives, tobacco or tobacco derived products, or from entities that directly conduct or obtain funds from gambling and betting activities, or from entities that produce or sell alcohol or entities which generate more than 50 % of their turnover from the production, distribution or promotion of alcohol products, or from entities that have caused major damage and have been convicted of environmental crimes, I will disclose this information about my funding mix, understanding that Synerb has a number of statutory limitations as to working with a range of organizations and will conduct an extensive review to determine, on a case-by-case basis, my eligibility to work with Synerb.”

II. Weighting criteria assessment and grouping organisations into selection groups.

8. At least half of the organisations included in the programme are required to be from rural and small urban areas and the other half from urban areas. We will select 6 organisations from rural and small urban areas and 6 organisations from urban areas.

III. Qualitative selection criteria, scoring process, maximum score limit / organizaton: 33 points.

9. The motivation and commitment to join the Visionary programme (maximum of 8 points)

The reasons for participating in the programme are clearly described, the organisation considers their participation in the programme as an important step in its development and in improving its fundraising capacity, the organisation can allocate the necessary time to participate in the programme.

10. Organisational development vision (maximum of 14 points)

The organisation clearly describes a vision for increasing their quantitative and qualitative social impact, ideally on the long term. We will look at the mission statement, project history, planned projects and organisational materials/links, if available and submitted.

11. Clear and compelling support needs identified (maximum of 11 points)

The organization describes the needs and weaknesses in its fundraising processes with clarity, it is aware of the fundraising challenges, and the fundraising vision shows that the organization is open to carry out additional fundraising activities or significantly expand some existing efforts, compared to what has been done in the past.

The steps of the selection process.

1. The evaluation team will consist of 2 members of the Synerb team.
2. Each application will be first assessed against the minimum eligibility criteria.
3. Organisations that do not meet the minimum eligibility criteria will no longer be scored on the qualitative assessment criteria and will be excluded from the evaluation process.
4. NGOs meeting the minimum eligibility criteria will be divided into two evaluation groups, 1) urban and 2) rural and small urban combined group.
5. Each application will be scored using the qualitative asessment criteria described above, by each individual evaluator. The final score of each applicant will be calculated by averaging the individual scores of the evaluators.
6. The list of the 12 winners will be composed of the top 6 NGOs in the combined rural and small urban evaluation group and the top 6 NGOs in the urban evaluation group.
7. Synerb will publish the list of the 12 NGOs selected for the programme and an additional reserve list of 3 organisations. Reserves will be included in the programme only if and when one of the 12 selected organisations fails to sign the agreement or gives up the onboarding process. The final list will be published with the organizations listed in alphabetical order. Synerb will not provide feedback and/or explanations to the organisations that have not been selected, nor will provide details about their scores.

Qualitative evaluation of the applications

As part of the selection process, we will assess the quality of each application – vision, impact, needs – and not the organization’s existing fundraising knowledge or prior experience. The scoring will NOT reflect the organization’s weaknesses and the lack of effective fundraising systems. The aim of this programme is to support organisations with a strong vision that are determined to grow or to consolidate.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF COOPERATION, YOUR NON-FINANCIAL COMMITMENT

Cost.

The participation of the NGOs in this programme is free of charge. Synerb covers all participation costs at the two camps – meals, accommodation, transportation – for one participant/organisation and the costs of experts or facilitators providing services/assistance to NGOs.

Conditions – time allocated and participation

Achieving organizational change and results takes time. The organisations selected in the programme can achieve their objectives by investing a minimum of:

• 3 days / year to participate in the Growth Camps, alongside the other selected organisations;
• Time to attend at least one support meeting / month (2 hours) with the Synerb team;
• Between 2 and 18 hours throughout the programme to work with a professional mentor from our network, depending on their needs;
• Time to ask for feedback, work on fundraising documents, write funding proposals, organize brainstorming sessions or attend other magic activities to increase funding for their organizations. In our experience, organisations that seek to grow their fundraising capacity should allocate a minimum of 20 intensive working days per year solely to fundraising activities;
• An 18-month participation commitment.

Our recommendation is that the NGO leaders – the president, manager, executive director, co-founder – are constantly involved in the process throughout the whole duration of the program, along with at least 1-2 members of their team, staff or volunteers.

Conditions – mandatory documents and performance monitoring

As with any impact journey, we will make sure we know the starting point and our destination. We will ask each organisation to send a set of financial (e.g. balance sheet) and organisational documents to us, so that we can determine the baseline of our journey. We will also collect a range of strategic information about the organisations in the programme, and ask each NGO to fill-out a number of self-assessment forms or online questionnaires, some of which are mandatory by the nature of the programme (2-3 forms per year), and some optional documents that will help us discover the needs and development opportunities of each NGO in the cohort.

Comunication.

The small victories, your achievements and the joy of working together will make up our communication campaign. We will kindly ask you to help us in our efforts to communicate about your NGO’s journey, by providing us pictures, quotes, stories and materials that might inspire other NGOs from the Romanian sector.

Signing a cooperation and assistance agreement

We’ll make sure our joint goals are transparent and clearly defined, therefore we will formalize our collaboration by signing a cooperation agreement, in which we will define the working procedure, obligations of the parties, the needs of your NGO and all the important details, including the GDPR issues and other formalities.

ABOUT THE PEOPLE IN THE PROGRAMME

During the program, you will collaborate both with the Synerb team – with Sonia, Mara and Zoltan – and with a number of experienced mentors in the areas of fundraising, communication, crowdfunding or project writing. All these people who joined our Visionary programme have either grown early stage NGOs, or they have helped a significant number of NGOs and local civil society leaders on their way to consolidation or growth. You will get to know some of these people during our Growth Camps or in the mentoring meetings. When matching mentors with NGOs, we will take into account the needs of each organisation and the availability and profile of the mentors and NGO leaders, and their level of interest to work together in order to solve a problem.

THE PROGRAMME TIMELINE, FROM APPLICATION TO PROGRAM START

Here is a brief outline of the programme timeline and the main activities we have planned:

1. Would you like to find out more about the Visionary programme? On the 12th of April, 2022,  11.00 AM, we’ll kick off the official launch of the programme, an event planned on Zoom, here:  https://zoom.us/j/99807701212
2. Apply for the Visionary programme here, until the 23rd of May, 2022.
3. We will evaluate all applications on a rolling basis between May 24 – 31, 2022. 
4. We will publish the list of selected organisations on Facebook, Linkedin and on the https://vizionar.synerb.org page. We’ll make sure you get an official email with the results on June the 1st, 2022. 
5. We will meet on Zoom and get to know each other during a light call. Then we’ll sign our collaboration agreement, during the week of June 2 – 10, 2022.
6. You are invited to attend our first Growth Camp, between June 29 and July the 1st, 2022.
7. We’ll do the groundwork and the matching with some of our mentors, starting with July, 2022, for 18 months.