The project proposal has the overall objective of raising the awareness and educating the NGO sector members in Macedonia for overcoming the major encountered obstacles during the start-up phase. The project consists of two main activities: producing a short documentary with success stories of NGO’s that have already successfully passed the start-up phase and organizing one 4-hour workshop on “Experiencing the Start-Up Phase and Digitalization for NGO’s” intended for members of newly established NGO’s in Macedonia. The project will last from 1 August – 31 December 2014.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Skopje (capital of Macedonia)
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
The target group of this project proposal are the members of the NGO sector in Macedonia, while the final beneficiaries are the members of NGO’s that are currently being established or are in their start-up phase. NBE through the constant contact with NGOs in the past five years has encountered number of issues that were identical for all newly established NGOs. The identified major problems of the NGO sector are the instability caused by the high turnover rate and the lack of publicly accessible information. There were 10,700 in 2009 and 11,326 in 2010. With the legal reforms, that number dropped to 4,686 registered NGO's in 2012. The majority of the registered CSOs (around 60%) are located outside the capital, and while they reside in urban areas, they lack online access to information.
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
The project proposal will be implemented by a project team, part of NBE, composed of: project coordinator and one trainer. The project coordinator will monitor and coordinate the implementation of the project activities and will conduct the interviews that will constitute the short documentary. The trainer will conduct the workshop entitled “The Case of NGO Establishment and Digitalization”. Additionally, one part-time employee from 3XFX will be hired to film the documentary, with a RED ONE camera. One individual with montaging skills will be hired to adjoin the various interviews into one single short documentary.
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
In order to promote the project activities, and constantly inform the stakeholders, five articles will be published on the website of NBE throughout the project implementation period and more than dozen posts will be published on the official Facebook page of NBE. The main output of the proposal is the short documentary entitled “Visualizing the NGO’s Path to Sustainability – Shared Success Stories”. Responsible people from at least five different NGO’s will be asked to share their experiences in establishing and successfully managing an NGO. Their stories will form a 15-20 minute documentary, which will be freely available on the website of NBE. This documentary should serve as an easy accessible tutorial for young NGO’s, on the do’s and don’ts in the start-up phase.
What technologies and digital tools do you plan to use in the trainings?
Describe the connections that you or your organization have already established or plan to establish that will contribute to the success of the project.
NBE has been an active member of the NGO sector in Macedonia for five years. It has implemented 6 projects from domestic and international donor institutions, and has participated in more than 50 Calls individually, or with partnering institutions. During this period NBE has developed a network of domestic NGOs and those connections will be utilized in order to obtain participants for the project activities, disseminate the project results and outputs, to maximize the project outreach. Additionally the NBE project team will include an experienced cameraman with highly qualified equipment and a person responsible for montaging the documentary.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
The short documentary will be posted and made freely available on the website and official Facebook page of NBE. It will be additionally promoted on the websites and social media of the five NGOs interviewed as part of it. It is expected that at least 1000 people in total will see the documentary during the project implementation period, expecting the views to increase after the project is successfully implemented. It is expected that at least 10 participants from the NGO sector will be present on the workshop entitled “The Case of NGO Establishment and Digitalization”.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
For organizing the workshops the following tools and technologies will be used: one notebook with Windows operating system, 12 desktop computers with Linux operating system, One Epson Projector, flipcharts. The trainer, part of the project team is a highly qualified individual that has already been involved in the operations of an NGO in Macedonia. Additionally NBE members with ICT experience will provide technical support for conducting the workshop. The short documentary will be filmed using a RED ONE camera, a camera used in filmography, with the following characteristics: Sensor: 12 Megapixel MYSTERIUM; Acquisition Formats: 2540 (via RAW Port option), 4K, 2K; Delivery Formats: 4K RGB, 2K RGB, 1920×1080 progressive, RGB or 4:2:2, 1280×720 progressive, RGB or 4:2:2.
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
The facilities where the workshops will take place are part of the Integrated Business Faculty, equipped with technical equipment for holding lectures for students. The computer laboratory has equipment with the following characteristics:
Workstations (desktop computers):
– 12 Desktop computers are available for the seminar
– Windows XP and/or Linux Xubuntu is supported, installed and configured
Internet connection:
– fiber-optic protected leased line to the second biggest Service provider in Macedonia – Neotel
– 10mbps capacity, but since the Institute and the Service provider hold partner relationship, could instantly increase to 100mbps, on demand.
Additional equipment:
– Smartboard: Excellent tool for effective presentation experience
– Projector
What is your current relationship with the community with whom you plan to work? What makes you the most appropriate individual or organization to implement this project?
NBE is officially established in 2004, and is an active member of the NGO sector in Macedonia since 2009. Throughout constant communication and collaboration with the majority of the NGOs in Macedonia, it has discovered the need for creating a short documentary which would serve as a visual description of the efforts needed to establish and run a successful NGO. NBE is already sustainable for the past 5 years, so it has the necessary experience and connections with the appropriate stakeholders to make this proposal a success. Additionally, NBE plans to build upon its work of organizing various trainings for NGOs in Macedonia, and continue with its ongoing efforts in order to strengthen and stabilize the structure of the sector.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
The major challenge is that one of the project activities (the short documentary or the workshop) might be postponed for various reasons. This is why the project team has included a bigger timeframe on which the activities will be implemented, so that any such challenges will be overcome. Additionally the project team has already got approval from the NGOs executives for doing the interviews, and has already found a cameraman and a person responsible for the montage of the documentary. The second challenge to the project is that there might be more people interested in the workshop than anticipated. If this is the case, than a second workshop will be organized, and the costs will be bared by the implementing organization.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
The project activities, part of this proposal will include at least 10 NGO organizations that will take part either in the short documentary or in the workshops, or at least 15 members of the NGO sector will be its primary participants. It is expected that the short documentary will be disseminated and seen by at least 1000 stakeholders, while expanding its outreach in the months after the project implementation period has been completed. Additionally, the news posted on the website and Facebook page of NBE are expected to be seen by at least 500 visitors.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
The project proposal will be implemented in the period 1 August 2014 – 31 December 2014. The activities will be implemented as follows:
1 August – 1 September 2014 – Promotion of project activities: 5 posts will be published on the website of NBE and 5 posts will be published on the Facebook page of NBE.
1 September – 1 November 2014 – Preparation and conduction of the interviews: 5 interviews with 5 different NGOs will be conducted in order to extract the necessary information for creating the short documentary. Additionally all the technical issues concerning the camera, voice recorder will be taken into account during this period.
1 November – 15 November 2014 – Montaging and finalizing the short documentary: During this period the short documentary will be composed from the 5 interviews previously taken.
15 November 2014 – 31 December 2014 –Conduction of the workshop – During this period the workshop will be conducted, and the short documentary published on the website of NBE.
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
Unit #units cost total
Project coordinator month 5 $150 $750
Cameraman days 10 $50 $500
Costs for renting equipment days 10 $50 $500
Montaging costs days 3 $50 $150
Rent for organizing workshop days 1 $100 $100
Total $2000
Additionally costs for utilities, and local travel expenses are all in-kind by NBE. Additionally the daily fee for the trainer at the workshop will also be considered as an in-kind cost and covered by NBE.
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
NBE is confident that has enough technical capacities, experience and personnel to implement this project proposal successfully. Therefore no additional assistance by Rising Voices is required throughout the project implementation period.
Contact name
Martin Stojanovikj
Organization
New Business Education Foundation (NBE)