In its first round of 2019-2022, the Stronger Roots Program supported 35 organizations and 9 networks to strengthen their relationships with people and partners around them. The internal and external evaluation demonstrates the impact on both the internal mindset as well as external connections of the supported organizations.
During the program, the supported organizations reached out to existing as well as new audiences, built connections and acquired new volunteers, donors, supporters and partners. This would not be possible without a change of mindset, that enabled the organizations to open up and realize how a strong community can help them achieve their goals and become stronger, publicly acclaimed, sustainable over the long run and more resilient, even when facing extreme external challenges, such as the shrinking space for civil society or the war in Ukraine.It is the people around them who help the civil society organizations fulfill their mission effectively and maintain their legitimacy and resilience.
– Marie Peřinová, the OSF Prague Program Director.
The Evaluation Summary also demonstrated great quantitative results of external outreach of the grantees. The supported organizations are 25 % more satisfied with their outreach to their target groups, have 4,7 more individual donors and 2,9 more followers on Instagram compared to the beginning of their project. Check more quantitative and qualitative results in the evaluation summary.
“Before entering the Stronger Roots Program, we were social services providers focused on our mission and dependent on grants and foundations. After the two years we realized how beneficial it was to open ourselves up to the public. It brought us not only money, but partners, friends, volunteers, and even new employees,” writes one of the supported organizations in their final report.