On February 10-11, 2020 a training session for almost 200 representatives of Act Locally Centers and the "PAFF Local Partnerships" Program was held in Warsaw. The participants of the training could learn about new trends and opportunities they offer in the area of activities aimed at local community development.
The hosts of the event were Joanna Lempart, Polish-American Freedom Foundation Program Director and Paweł Łukasiak, President of the Academy for the Development of Philanthropy in Poland. The opening lecture was given by Jasmine Adams representing GlobalGiving, an international platform that connects donors with grassroots projects around the world. In her lecture Adams showed how Polish NGOs can use the platform and get the GlobalGiving team’s support in order to receive grants from donors residing in various countries. The positive aspect of looking for such funding is that you can raise funds for projects responding to the current needs of communities.
After that lecture, the participants listened to lectures whose main theme were local solutions responding to global problems. Kamil Wyszkowski, CEO of UN Global Compact Poland, presented the Sustainable Development Goals – seventeen overlapping points adopted as the agenda for peace, freedom and sustainable development at the UN Summit in 2015. He also spoke about the inevitable climate change. Ecology as the subject very important for local communities was present also in a lecture given by Mirosław Proppé, President of the WWF Poland Board. Proppé spoke about WWF activities in Poland and encouraged the training participants to join certain ecological actions of WWF Poland.
A lot of inspiration was provided by a presentation of NGO good practices in the area of global challenges that have proven effective in the USA. The experiences gained during their study visit to the USA under the “PAFF Leaders” Program were shared by Agata Gajda of School of Leaders Foundation and Liliana Helwich, a PAFF Leader.
The rest of the two-day training was in form of simultaneous workshop and lecture sessions. Some people participated in design thinking workshops where they were looking for ideas to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Act Locally program. The moderators of the workshop were Iga Król-Łęgowska and Aleksandra Norkowska.
The meeting made also an opportunity to learn about the offer of grant competitions and various sources of support for NGOs. Piotr Krygiel, Vice Director of the National Freedom Institute presented the NFI programs, Anna Fedas of Batory Foundation and Maria Jagaciak of Shipyard – Centre for Social Innovation and Research told about Active Citizens project, Dominik Mosiczuk of Polish-German Youth Exchange informed about the assumptions of international exchange for students, while Piotr Jaśkiewicz of Science for Environment Foundation presented the IT- Good Support program. Rafał Miszkiel who runs the Life in a Wheelchair channel on YouTube shared his experiences in the methods of fundraising for building the first stationary hospice in Podlasie and told on the Elijah the Prophet Hospice activities.
Training sessions for the members of Act Locally Centers Network are part of the “Act Locally” Program offer and serve strengthening the participants’ competence and potential for development of local organizations.
The “Act Locally” Program is an initiative of Polish-American Freedom Foundation managed by Academy for the Development of Philanthropy in Poland. So far it has implemented 11,500 local projects all over Poland participated by 4 million residents and almost 220,000 volunteers. The program is based on the network of 77 Act Locally Centers covering the area of 650 Polish communes.
