Raiffeisen Bank announces the opening of registrations for the annual Raiffeisen Communities grant competition that offers non-reimbursable financing in amount of 500,000 lei for 10 non-formal education projects implemented by NGOs and public schools.
According to a bank statement, the projects must be entered in the competition by July 29, 17:00 hrs, on the Granturi.raiffeisencomunitati.ro platform.
The projects eligible for funding in the Raiffeisen Communities grant competition must span 4 to 12 months, beginning with Q4 2021. The maximum amount that can be accessed by an applicant is 50,000 lei, and applicant organizations must cover at least 20 percent of the project's value from its own sources or other sources of funding, Agerpres informs.
Eligible projects must fall into one of the 4 categories accepted in the competition: financial education, entrepreneurial education, vocational education and civic education.
The winning projects are chosen in two assessment stages: in the first stage, they are evaluated by a team of community project experts and Raiffeisen Bank employees, and in the second stage 20 finalists present their ideas before an independent jury panel consisting of educational program experts who pick the 10 projects that will each receive up to 50,000 lei in funding.
"After a year in which the education system had to suddenly adjust to the health context, the need to support educational projects with a community impact is even greater. The Raiffeisen Communities grant competition aims to help representatives of the civil society and education institutions who have identified a community need they want to address through relevant projects," said Corina Vasile, Raiffeisen Bank Communication and Public Relations Director.
Apart from funding for the project's implementation, the winning organizations will receive mentorship in areas such as financial management, fundraising, communication and development of a community support network, enabling the projects to continue even after the Raiffeisen Bank funding runs to end.
Dedicated to NGOs and public educational institutions active in the communities where the bank is present, Raiffeisen Communities is the longest-running funding program for non-formal education programs in Romania. In the 11 years of the program's existence, Raiffeisen Bank has financed over 140 projects, with the value of the investment having reached about 5 million lei.