The cooperation between the public sector and the CSOs is dense and much of the income of the CSOs comes from the public sector. Though the principles and practices of funding CSOs are quite different. Since 2012 Praxis provides trainings on the topic of funding the CSOs. The main goal of this is to make the funding process more transparent, more accessible and also to serve the aims of the state and local governments while also advance the capabilities of the CSOs

The main themes covered in the course were:

  • The introduction and main principles of funding the CSOs from the state budget.
  • Explanatory training on why it is important to standardise the funding from the state budget.
  • Explanatory training on the different funding possibilities.
  • Different phases of the funding process and their characteristics.
  • Introduction of the funding documents.

The training was aiming to answer the following questions:

  • How to ensure transparent use of the publics` money?
  • How to combine the subsidy with strategic goals?
  • How to come to the right conclusion under which circumstances to allow the CSO an operating and when a project grant?
  • Why and how to evaluate the effectiveness of the funding?

The training consisted of two parts: theoretical and the practical. The practical tasks where designed so that the participants would acquire new skills for organizing the funding procedure in their corresponding institution. Previously used successful and less successful practices were analysed to spell out the common mistakes. The goal is to give as much information to the officials and to simplify the use of the manual in their day-to-day work.

The nature of the training is interactive, so that all the participants can ask questions and comment on issues throughout.

These trainings were attended mostly by officials at the state and local government level whose job is to organize and supervise the funding of the CSOs and also the representatives of the CSOs were welcome to participate.