The Consultants´ Guild

• The Trust in the CR:

• Impacts and Achievements
  • Overall impacts
  • Meeting CEE Trust goals
• Program Map
• Program Components
  • Creating a Favorable Legislative, Fiscal and Philanthropic Environment
  • Creating a Favorable Environment for Advocacy and Public Policy
  • Institutional Support for Key Strategic NGOS
  • Knowledge Fund
  • The Consultants´ Guild
  • Strengthening Regional / Community Foundations
  • Non-Profit Organizations on the Threshold of the EU: Support for Model Regional and Community Projects
  • Ensuring Access to Information and Expertise Concerning EU funding
  • Increasing Support from the Private Sector
  • Increasing Support from Individuals
• Program In Spotlight
  • CEET in facts and figures
  • CEET in the eyes of grantees
  • CEET in stories
  • CEET in pics
• Annotated Summary of Grants( pdf 153 kB)

A program component implemented by The VIA Foundation

This operational program aimed to build a network of consultants and create a support base for them, providing education, information and a platform for sharing their experience with one another, as well as with partners from other Visegrad countries.

A 2-year educational program led by the Partners for Democratic Change Slovakia enhanced the professional skills of 28 participating Czech and Slovak consultants (trainees, tutors and mentors). Moreover, it substantially contributed to the cross-border collaboration between the two countries, which are not separated by a language barrier and therefore can mutually benefit from the exchange of consultants. The networking aspect of the program work was further enlarged to other CEE countries through the international conference "Trends in Consultancy" held in November 2004, where 50 consultants from 6 countries participated. Another contribution to the education and international networking of NGO consultants was made through a grant to The Development School, which covered the costs of Czech participants in the "Social Development Practice" course.

Together with refining the expert capacity of individual consultants, the program Consultants' Guild (CG) was developed as an informal platform for networking, experience-sharing and professional development. It included a wide range of tools - website, electronic mailing lists for members, 4 meetings, 2 national workshops on both general (e.g. ethic code of consultancy practice) and specific (e.g. databases of donors) issues and the international networking event for fundraisers from 4 Visegrad countries. The broad NGO community especially benefited from the database of Czech and Slovak NGO consultants that, by the end of 2004, incorporated 106 entries, including 8 entries from Slovakia, and has become a frequently visited site.

The most active core of the consultants' community formally established The Consultants' Guild as a civic association that will carry on the mission after the close of the CEE Trust program. In parallel, some of the CG members established NETT, the Independent Think Tank on NGO Sector and Civil Society, with the aim of integrating the creative, conceptual and analytical capacities of NGO consultants.

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