Representatives of the Act Locally Centers and the PAFF Local Partnerships met in Warsaw on October 29, at the workshop on improving competence in implementation of local projects. The opening lecture on “The leader’s dilemma – violence or partnership” was given by Prof. Andrzej Blikle, an entrepreneur, management specialist and the President of the Family Enterprise Initiative Association.
The leaders of local organizations present at the meeting had an opportunity to listen how the Professor’s personal experiences and the model of management impact building the quality of the company. Professor Blikle showed the range of intangible benefits which a leader can offer to the team and which help build the team loyalty and bring better results of work.
Then, the participants of the meeting listened to the lecture by Kinga Białek, an intercultural psychologist and a partner of the Ocalenie Foundation, who introduced the subject of refugee’s presence in Poland. The lecturer spoke about the challenges which local communities might face in connection with refugees’ presence and emphasized the importance of broadly conceived education in this respect.
Next the participants of the workshop took part in five simultaneous thematic sessions.
The special guest at this part of the meeting was Jessica Wettstein, a coach and consultant of Business in the Community organization. She shared with the participants her experiences of her organization, operating in the United Kingdom, in the area of involving business to cooperation at the local level. The workshop groups worked on such issues as how to make best use of the local companies potential, how to motivate them to involve into social actions or how to build sustainable relations.
The session conducted by Katarzyna Artemiuk, an expert and a coach, a representative of the TROP Group, was especially interesting for organizations that involve volunteers in their activities. During intense, 1.5-hour work the participants were trying to answer the question how they can build the team and volunteers motivation. The workshop presented many examples of the best practices in this respect.
The quite new element was the workshop using drama, conducted by animator and coach Aleksandra Chodasz of the “Good Life” Development Foundation. The workshop was on ability to build relations and effective communication in cooperation with partners. The participants were made to pay special attention to the need to define the principles. The interactive form of work made it possible to test these principles in various situations.
In turn, Tomasz Schimanek, an expert of the Academy for Development of Philanthropy in Poland, told the participants about the mechanisms of financial cooperation of public administration and non-governmental organizations as the managers of public tasks.
The fifth group worked on defining the local needs in the area of financial consulting for beneficiaries of the Act Locally Centers. The workshop was conducted by Beata Juraszek-Kopacz, Katarzyna Sadło and Katarzyna Adamska-Dutkiewicz of the Civil Society Development Foundation, the manager of the PAFF program “Financial Management in NGO” (“FIMANGO”) that offers training, consultancy and publications to people in charge of finance management of non-profit organizations.
The workshops for “Act Locally” and “PAFF Local Partnerships” participants are held cyclically. Among other things, they help to improve competence in carrying a dialogue with local community, establish contacts with partners and raise funds.
The “Act Locally” Program supports and activates local communities in rural areas and small towns through the civic projects that help stimulate development aspirations and improve the quality of life as well as contribute to social capital building. Through the network of 60 Act Locally Centers operating in the area of almost 600 communes, residents’ initiatives serving to stimulate social activity, development aspirations and social capital building are supported financially in the local grant competitions. Implementation of more than 7,500 projects involved the total of almost 3 million participants, including almost 150,000 volunteers. PAFF has disbursed almost PLN 30 million to finance those projects, whose total value, including the grantees’ own contribution, amounted to almost PLN 53 million.
The PAFF Local Partnerships program is an award for communities which are the most active in implementation of the Polish-American Freedom Foundation’s programs. Its objective is to initiate and develop further cooperation of participants of these programs in order to create multisector partnerships implementing projects that are important for local communities. They use the local communities animation method that serves to build common good based on previously carried out social diagnoses. So far 30 Partnerships have been established in the Program, participated by 430 partners; their operation covers over 70 districts and they have implemented projects whose total value is almost PLN 3 million.
