The Citizen Engagement Activity(CEA) funded by the USAID mission in Kosovo has opened the
call for applications to support partnerships between Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and the private sector. These partnerships will work on joint initiatives that address community concerns and promote cross-sectoral cooperation, with the aim of contributing to increasing social trust and creating a more favorable environment for financial and non-financial support of civil society.

The Citizen Engagement Activity (CEA) in Kosovo is a five-year initiative implemented by the Kosovo Civil Society Foundation (KCSF) in partnership with the Catalyst Balkans funded by USAID. This initiative is dedicated to cultivating a culture of activism that makes life in our neighborhoods and cities better, more loving, and more meaningful. This initiative imagines a future built on the foundations of a civil society, which through courageous activism, bottom-up representation, comprehensive cooperation, professional action, transparency in all aspects of public and institutional life and the different use of resources bring about radical change in our communities.
Likewise, this initiative aims at a rediscovered sense of solidarity towards each other. Building on the powerful knowledge and experience of the most prominent voices and leaders in the fields of civil society professional support and institutional cooperation, the Citizen Engagement Activity is a serious commitment to increase, democratize and protect the power that our communities
have to bring change and progress. Through efforts for sustained coordination, genuine interaction and through improving the capacities of those involved in activism every day, the Citizen Engagement Activity will advance many actions, which rest on these three main pillars: community, trust and resource mobilization.

Empowering Local NGOs through Donation Matching on Donacije.rs the Serbian Crowdfunding
Platform. This project aims to enhance the fundraising capabilities of NGOs by introducing a donation matching feature on the Donacije.rs crowdfunding platform. By launching the first matching campaign in Serbia, the project supports NGOs aligned with DAP priorities and demonstrates the effectiveness of collaborative fundraising.
This initiative will enhance community participation, boost support for critical social causes, and create a sustainable funding model for NGOs. By fostering an enabling environment for NGO work, the project contributes to long-term sustainability and empowers organizations to better serve their communities, aligning with Post’s objective to support NGO capacity building.

Our Local Action aims to directly address the challenge of disinformation, by scrutinizing and exposing anti-Western narratives that may skew public perception of philanthropy. By highlighting how certain media portrayals could be contributing to disinformation, our project seeks to offer clarity and counteract misleading narratives that undermine a balanced understanding of Western philanthropic efforts in Serbia. We propose an AI driven analysis of Serbia’s media coverage concerning philanthropy throughout the last four months of 2023. We aim to differentiate how Western philanthropy is portrayed in comparison to philanthropic efforts from countries such as Russia and China. This project will employ advanced sentiment analysis techniques to systematically identify and assess any prevailing biases or distinctive trends in reporting. 

By delving into various media outlets, including widely-read newspapers and digital media platforms, our analysis will offer a comprehensive view of the media landscape in Serbia. This endeavor is not just about data collection and analysis; it’s also about understanding the broader implications of these portrayals on public perception and the discourse surrounding foreign aid and philanthropy. Our goal is to uncover the nuances in media reporting and provide an objective, data-driven perspective on how different sources of philanthropy are perceived and represented in Serbian media. 

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 unleashed a devastating humanitarian crisis, forcing millions of Ukrainian families to flee their homes in search of safety across Europe. At first, countries welcomed them with open arms, offering shelter, aid, and protection. However, as time passed, the warm reception began to cool, influenced by local politics, economic pressures, and, in some cases, disinformation1. 

Serbia stands out as a critical case in this evolving situation. With the heavy presence of Kremlin-backed media outlets like Sputnik2 and Russia Today3, the portrayal of Ukrainian refugees in Serbian media has often mirrored Kremlin narratives, affecting public opinion and policy decisions. We aim to investigate how these disinformation campaigns shape public perception, influencing how refugees are viewed and, ultimately, how they are treated. 

Why does this matter? Because this is about more than just Europe—it’s about standing up to disinformation that threatens democracy, human rights, and global stability. The same tactics used to distort the truth about Ukrainian refugees are employed worldwide. By understanding and countering these narratives in Serbia, we can better protect truth, empathy, and justice, not only for refugees but also in defending democratic values everywhere. 

In partnership with the network of frontline workers in Serbia—individuals who work directly with refugees and local communities, protection of human rights and countering disinformation — we will analyze how Serbian media has echoed Kremlin disinformation over time. Our research will uncover specific phrases and themes used to sway public opinion and policy, empowering those on the ground to better advocate for refugees and expose misleading narratives. 

This research project is an action plan aimed at fostering understanding and compassion for those fleeing war while combating disinformation head-on. Our work will provide invaluable insights to frontline workers, media professionals, political activists, and policymakers, helping them communicate more effectively and advocate for Ukrainian refugees’ rights and dignities. Added value are the workshop on ethical journalism and the guide on methodology that we will produce for everyone that wants to re-create our steps and produce individual research on the topic.  

To connect with the public directly, we will culminate our project with a unique event: Delicacy Monday at KC GRAD, a cultural center in Serbia. Here, Ukrainian cuisine will be served, and our findings will be presented to foster dialogue between communities, raise awareness, and rally support for Ukrainian refugees. 

In order to effectively fight disinformation, communications channels need to be established and capacities prepared. The self-propagating nature of disinformation, especially in times of social media, means that an active, well-informed community is key to fighting it. In other words, the ability of an organization to respond to future disinformation campaigns hinges on its capacity to build, maintain their community and keep their community informed timely, effectively and cheaply. We intend to build that capacity for two organizations (NUNS and Europolis) that already have substantial communities (of members, supporters and activists), and help them use technology to leverage and grow their communities, but also establish a more direct way of communication between them and their respective communities. Europolis brings grassroots activism and local community clout, essential for mobilizing support and fostering resilience against misinformation. NUNS contributes its professional media experience and extensive network, vital for disseminating accurate information. Catalyst Balkans offers specialized skills in CRM implementation and digital transformation, providing the technological backbone for effective communication and community engagement. Partners Serbia, with its expertise in legal matters, ensures our initiatives are ethically sound and legally compliant, addressing privacy and data protection concerns. 

The COVID-19 pandemic brought huge challenges to the Serbian municipalities and their crisis teams in the area of informing the population appropriately and providing the necessary materials.  Support measures of the Serbian Government during the Covid-19 pandemic focused above all on the provision of medical equipment and achievement of economic stability. Social protection was marginalized. For example, it was initially hardly possible for the social work centres (centres set up by the respective municipalities, which coordinate social work on behalf of the Serbian Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs) and other social service providers to procure protective equipment or obtain exemptions from the imposed curfew in order to ensure the care of persons in need.  

Civil society social service providers are under even greater pressure because, unlike the centres for social work, they often lack state support. They are thus partly insufficiently financed and rely mainly on voluntary work. The lack of funding has had an impact on the technical equipment of the CSOs and significantly limited their ability to respond to the curfews. Despite these limitations, many CSOs continued to offer their target groups services, e.g. telephone psycho-social counselling, and responded relatively quickly and creatively to the restrictions. 

CSOs are often the only actors who can maintain access to “invisible” people – people who are socially unnoticed due to their marginalisation. Nevertheless, due to the effects of the Covid19 crisis, social service providers continue to face considerable financial and logistical difficulties, which also have medium-term consequences. In many municipalities, the already scarce funds earmarked for social services provided by CSOs have been cut. In addition, regular calls for tender for social services, to which licensed CSOs can apply, have been postponed or they have not taken place. In any case, many CSOs have insufficient or no licences to offer social services and are therefore excluded from public tenders, which further endangers their economic viability. The income from social enterprises (e.g. cafés and bakeries), many of which are managed by CSOs as an integration measure for socially disadvantaged people, had to be closed during curfews, resulting in further financial losses for CSOs.  

For Proaktor.org, the elearning platform built under this project, the courses were originally conceived to be dubbed into each of the languages of the region. After doing some testing of our target audience, we learned that a more crucial element would be for us to have subtitles. So we pivoted to using subtitles instead for these first three courses, although based on continual feedback we may continue to test our dubbing in future course development. For the reporting on the Tech Needs Survey, the original idea was to launch the results using a Powerpoint presentation and a set of infographics. We realized during implementation that a better approach would be one that we used for the launch of the BTD-funded report on COVID-related giving in Fall 2020 which involved the creation of a landing page on the Giving Balkans website. Because this requested change required both a change in the deliverable as well as an adjustment to the budget, Catalyst sought and received written approval from BTD before moving forward with this change.

1. A country-by-country overview of the legal framework related to organizational and economic aspects of giving and receiving donations in cash and in-kind goods across borders within the target six countries;
2. A current snapshot of cross-border giving between countries and the historical trendlines in what is being given and for what causes;
3. An analysis of existing global models for improving regional cohesion around cross-border giving and potential applications to the Western Balkans;
4. Identification of barriers to and opportunities for an improved enabling environment for cross-border giving
5. A set of recommendations on what policymakers and philanthropy ecosystem stakeholders can do to improve the legal framework and enabling environment to spur a greater level of cross-border philanthropy

1. An online report (downloadable as a PDF), approximately 20-25 pages in length, in English, Albanian, Macedonian and B/M/S.
2. A set of small advocacy message infographics corresponding to the report recommendations that could be used to raise public awareness
3. A mapping of key policy stakeholders in each country and delivery of the analysis to those stakeholders.