Supports institutional strengthening of Community Foundations in Bulgaria.
For a town and its children
A community foundation is a local foundation that manages funds contributed by a large number of donors and provides funding for civic initiatives. It is geographically located: it works for a specific geographic community – a city, town or region.
WCIF has always supported local development initiatives. It is this experience and our desire to work for the development of specific locations in the country that is the basis for the Community Foundations Development Program.
A community foundation is a local foundation that manages funds provided by a large number of donors and provides funding for civic initiatives. It is geographically located: it works for a specific geographic community – a city, municipality or region. The foundation is an intermediary between local donors and civil society organizations (NGOs, informal groups): it helps donors to realise their charitable intentions; it creates a culture of giving, ensures transparent and efficient spending of donor funds. At the same time, it provides grant funding: it raises funds from donations and distributes them as grants for the implementation of civic initiatives, thus contributing to the development of the local civic sector. The Community Foundation supports a wide range of causes: it does not limit itself to raising funds for a single cause, which distinguishes it from other NGOs that specialize in one or several areas of activity and raise funds for them. Its work stimulates cross-sectoral partnerships: it attracts different stakeholders to collaborate on community issues. Often provides added value to funded projects: in addition to financial contributions, the community foundation mobilizes volunteer labour and other forms of non-financial contributions to NGO projects. By bringing together citizens, businesses and institutions to solve specific local problems, the Community Foundation stimulates the building of positive social capital and helps to improve the quality of life in the community.
Community foundations direct donations to areas that need support (most often education, health and addiction prevention, working with children, youth and other vulnerable groups, ecology, improving the living environment, preserving cultural and historical heritage, stimulating talent, etc.).
In our country, community foundations have been established and developed with the support of the United States Agency for International Development USAID (2001-2008), the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and the Trust for Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe (2006-2009) in several small and medium-sized municipalities, including Blagoevgrad, Gabrovo, Lom, Pazardzhik, Stara Zagora, Chepelare and Yambol. Since 2009, WCIF has been supporting community foundations as one of the opportunities to develop local philanthropy.
Community Foundation – Blagoevgrad is one of the organizations that WCIF supports.
One of the many projects implemented by the Community Foundation in Blagoevgrad is the “Society of Good”.
Through this project, WCIF co-financed funds raised from local donors, which were used to organize and support activities of schools in the municipality. The project contributes significantly to the social inclusion and participation in school extracurricular activities of children at risk and children from poor families. All children from lower economic status families are included in green schools together with their classmates, because tourism and sports are a necessary part of every child’s life, and walking and playing in nature shows them the world they should care for and preserve.
Teams, equipment, didactic materials, supplies are provided for the initiative to enrich and diversify the outdoor activities so that children learn as much as possible about our cultural and historical heritage, the environment, ecology, the diversity of animals and plants and the care for their protection. Within the same project, children from vulnerable groups attend the productions of two seasons of the Drama and Puppet Theatre, as well as the performances of the Opera Theatre.