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Description
The project comes as a response to the problem of the lack of recognition, visibility and citizens’ trust in NGOs(the level of Romanians’ trust in NGOs-30% being below the EU countries’ level-55-60%, according to Romania 2017-FDSC research). To create a positive image of the sector, the project will put the spotlight on NGOs impact and will focus on 3 dimensions: perception on NGOs, awareness of their impact and visibility of their activity.
The experience of "Today small NGOs, tomorrow sustainable NGOs"(ACF Program) showed the need not only for improvement, but for creating a clear image of small/local NGOs. According to the data collected before the start of the project only 25% of the organizations regularly communicated information about their results to the public;9.6% of them had an annual report available to the general public. The project target group(20,000 people)is divided into 4 categories: general public, young people, public authorities, business environment, and will be involved in the following activities:2 civil society festivals,1 contest of journalistic materials addressed to young people, debates with the public authorities,1 campaign to raise awareness of the business environment regarding the NGO impact,1 NGO annual report competition and the creation of an annual report design template.
The central message of the planned campaign is that NGOs produce changes that matter. It aims to improve the public image of the civil society organisations by promoting NGOs results with emphasis on the idea that they have a real impact and are essential in a democratic society. All activities will relate to the established message and will be promoted under the umbrella of an intense communication campaign of the entire project. The partnership in the project makes it possible to intervene in 2 regions: North-West and Center, leading to a more diverse TG. The expertise accumulated in the 30 years of the organization''s existence is another advantage.
Summary of project results
The challenges that the project aimed to address were: lack of recognition, visibility and trust in NGOs on the part of citizens; through a series of specific activities targeting the general public, young people, businesses and public authorities (20.000 pers). Thus, during the course of the project (May 1, 2023-April 30, 2024) the 7 types of activities foreseen were carried out, without any changes.
The first activity, the launch of the project, took place through an opening conference on the impact of NGOs (103 pers). Since then, efforts have been oriented towards creating a positive attitude towards the sector through 2 festivals (A3) attended by 50 NGOs from the North-West and Center (development regions in Romania), where 4,532 visitors interacted with NGOs, and through the Journalistic Material Competition for Young People (A4). Visibility of activities was a priority throughout the implementation period (A2). The best organic results in social media showed a reach of 7,792 users on a single FB post.
The results from the Business Awareness Campaign (A5) whose most liked FB post reached 573 likes. In total, the online campaign that raised awareness about redirecting 20% of tax to NGOs reached over 14,000 users. The 3 Civic Talks (A6) debates brought together over 170 people from local, county, NGO and social business institutions, and the annual report template developed in the NGO Competition (A7) was disseminated nationally and taken up by several organizations. In total, the project has reached 55,285 people who benefited from awareness campaigns on the role of NGO’s in society, 88 posts (FB, Instagram, Linkedin), 19 articles on the website. The activities were promoted with the help of 6 media partners; actions that led to a wider impact of the project to improve the image of NGOs among the targeted audience.