What We Support

I.       CEE Trust mission and purpose

“Helping mobilize civil societies to address critical issues in the seven CEE Trust countries” is the shortest summary of the CEE Trust mission.

The CEE Trust definition of civil society is based on a broad understanding, including formal and informal non-profit organizations. The CEE Trust encourages them to expand their constituencies and consider the future of their work in times when European policies and local philanthropy will define the environment.

The CEE Trust supports organizations that:

• provide a strong reading of their own environment and the needs/issues that they wish to respond to;
• have a clear vision;
• consider the social impact of their work;
• foster effective partnerships and work in coalition when advocating for public good.

The CEE Trust supports projects that fulfill one or more of the following:

• emerge from within a country or locality’s particular context;
• provide individuals/people with a voice and enable them to act to influence their own futures;
• ensure government responds to people/individuals;
• stimulate civic dialogue and solidarity;
• build respect for diversity and strengthen pluralism;
• allow creative and innovative ideas to be transformed into action;
• allow continuation of core activities with measurable indicators for achievement of objectives as well as effects and impacts on society;
• provide indicators to measure achievements of project’s objectives;
• provide logical framework between goals, activities and results (reasoning why proposed activities will lead to achievement of a goal);
• indicate clearly its target groups;
• provide guarantee of sustainability of a project after CEE Trust cease funding;
• bring measurable effects (both qualitative and quantitative) and clear, demonstrable impact on society.

II. Thematic Call for proposals: The Rule of law and democracy in the Czech Republic

CEE Trust Funding Areas, Program Vision and Principles

Given the context and framework described above, the CEE Trust announces the thematic call for proposals The Rule of law and democracy in the Czech Republic. Long-term, sustainable economic and social development is rooted in the rule of law and democratic governance. Properly functioning rule of law is the most effective answer to problems faced by society including corruption or violation of human rights. While institutional framework may be copy based, rule of law principles are not transferable. The Czech Republic, similarly to other post communist countries faces crisis of citizen’s trust to rule of law and proper functioning of democratic institutions. CEE Trust decided to respond to this problem and invites interested and qualified non-profit, non-governmental organizations, expert groups, coalitions, and public education institutions (excluding business organizations, governmental institutions or municipalities) to work on the following funding areas:

1.         Effective application of law

2.        Accountability of public institutions and fight against corruption

3.        Guaranteeing Rights and Democratic Processes

The last priority concentrates on promoting independence of the judiciary and ensuring the constitutionality of government actions. Within this priority projects focusing on human rights, judicial independence, access to justice, legal empowerment of the poor and the disadvantaged, civil society oversight of the justice system and building a culture of lawfulness may be supported.

In all three funding areas civil society actors may realize projects through mechanisms such as, but not limited to:

a)  monitoring and watchdog activities

b)  advocacy activities for policy and legislative changes

c)  strategic litigation and legal counseling

d)  anticorruption audits

e)  education and training of judges, future judges and law students

f)   strengthening organizations’ and groups’ capacity to generate public debate on topics of importance;

g)  encouraging critical thinking and real public debate.

III.    Application procedure

The application process consists of 2 stages:

1.Submission of Letter of Intent and Project Application Form with deadline of 18 February 2009 sent to czechrepublic.applications@ceetrust.org

2.Short- listed applicants will be announced by 11 March 2009

3.Short-listed applicants are invited to prepare and submit a Full proposal with deadline of 17 April 2009.

All Letters of Intent and Full proposals are reviewed by the CEE Trust with the help of Advisory Committee consisting of independent experts from the Czech Republic.