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Creative fundraising boosts Croatia’s grantmaking
By Maggie I. Jaruzel
Homegrown, or indigenous, grantmaking has developed in a very different way in Croatia when compared to the rest of the Western Balkans.
Since 2004, thousands of the country’s 4.5 million residents have contributed indirectly to Croatia’s grantmaking system. Every time someone buys a lottery ticket or plays a slot machine, 50 percent of the proceeds (minus the winnings) is divided among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in eight broad fields that help improve communities and strengthen civil society organizations. The other half goes into the country’s general budget.
One of these NGOs is the National Foundation for Civil Society Development in Zagreb. Parliament approved creation of this grantmaker after two years of pressure from NGOs. They wanted government funds made available to nonprofits to help address Croatia’s pressing social problems, according to Cvjetana Plavsa-Matic, director of the national foundation.
This indigenous grantmaker has three regional offices with a staff of 10 and an annual budget of $4 million. They in turn make grants ranging from $2,000 to $60,000 to local NGOs.
The national foundation plans to launch a three-year pilot project in 2007 in hopes of moving toward a more decentralized approach to grantmaking. The real goal is to get the money to the places it is needed as quickly and as economically as possible.
For Plavsa-Matic, bigger isn’t always best when it comes to grantmaking.
“We like to be flexible and make sure we also give grants in smaller amounts because we have seen some brilliant ideas that really helped communities and it only has taken a small amount of money.”
She predicts that the successful indigenous grantmakers in the Western Balkans of tomorrow will not be national foundations. Instead, they will be community-based funds that are supported by local companies, along with community foundations endowed with money from individuals. Both will be nimble in their responses to local and regional needs.
“That’s the future of indigenous grantmaking. It’s not in using only one national institution like ours, because we cannot always respond adequately,” Plavsa-Matic said.
“During socialism, people were used to looking to the state to do everything for them. But now the state is not able to do everything. People are learning to have the initiative to solve problems at the community level. That’s why indigenous grantmaking becomes even more important.”