The Open Society Fund Prague and Committee of Good Will – Olga Havel Foundation on behalf of a consortium of the Active Citizens Fund announces the open interim call for proposals on action grants program for local initiatives or one-off local events that trying to start events in their community or that further develop existing civic activities and cooperation at the local level.

The call for proposals is intended for locally operating organizations that have the motivation to change the local environment. At the same time, it targets less experienced organizations that have the desire and energy to gain new experience in preparing grant applications and therefore strengthen their own capacity. Experience with grant application is not a condition, the deciding factor is a local scope of activity.

The aim of the action grants is to support projects which are to solve current needs and challenges at the local level and at the same time focus on:

• Active citizenship, i.e. citizen’s engagement in planning and public policy decision making at the municipal level and civil society activities
• Advocacy and watchdog activities, i.e. executive branch monitoring, public interest defence through advocacy work and lobbying, corruption mitigation
• Vulnerable groups empowerment, i.e. increased engagement of vulnerable groups into public policy decision making and greater public knowledge of the needs of these groups

Funding Information

These action grants in the amount of € 1,000–3,000 will be divided into projects lasting 1–12 months. The total available indicative budget for awarding grants for action projects under this call is € 202,000.

Eligibility Criteria

• Application submission is allowed on condition that the applicant is registered for at least one year as a non-profit organization in the Czech Republic.
• It is a registered legal entity in the Czech Republic defined by the Czech law as: civic association (i.e. legal name in Czech: spo- lek, u´stav, obecne prospesna´ spolecnost), foundation and endowment fund (i.e. legal name in Czech: nadace a nadacni´ fond) or organization department of church and religious society (i.e legal name in Czech: u´celove´ zari´zeni´ registrovane´ ci´rkve a na´bozenske´ spolecnosti) on the condition, that the proposed and funded project activities do not promote a religious doctrine, mission or proselytism related to the beliefs of a particular faith, possibly interest association of legal persons (i.e. legal name in Czech: za´jmova´ sdruzeni´ pra´vnicky´ch osob) if all members of the association are non-governmental non-profit organizations and individually fulfil the eligibility criteria (see the checklist in the annex of each call for proposals);
• It is registered legal entities at least two years prior the submission deadline of the application;
• Applicants must be directly responsible for the implementation of the project for which they are seeking a grant, and must not act merely as an intermediary of project activities.
• Religious institutions (except the charities), political parties, social partners or profit-distributing cooperatives (including trade- and professional associations, where the aims and purposes of the association is to further the specific interests of its members only) are not considered NGOs.

For more information, visit Active Citizens Fund.