Confidence Building – a joint initiative of the Robert Bosch Stiftung and the Black Sea Trust
The Robert Bosch Stiftung and the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation of the German Marshall Fund (BST) are continuing their joint funding initiative to support confidence building activities of non-state actors in the South Caucasus, Ukraine and Moldova, and its neighboring countries. The partners are convinced that civil society can make a valuable contribution to the process of confidence building, mutual understanding and reconciliation between populations in territories presently of recently involved in (armed) conflicts. This initiative is designed to encourage grantees to investigate new ways, methods and approaches for fostering mutual understanding.
 
Program Description

The projects should be initiated by civil society organizations which can effectively engage target audiences within the population of the region in their projects’ activities. Organizations requesting grants must be legally registered in one of the following countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, Russia Turkey and Ukraine. The involvement of additional partners (especially those from the EU) is possible and welcome.
Projects working in the following areas would be especially appreciated:
·         approaches to build and/or strengthen local, regional and national capacities to promote coexistence and reintegration;
·         cross-border initiatives for youth;
·         approaches to civic education or active citizenship;
·         approaches to reconciliation and peace that incorporate experiences from history and convey them to the younger generation;
·         arts and cultural work to advance peace and reconciliation;
·         the role of media in overcoming stereotypes.
A special emphasis is placed on multilateral initiatives and those that reach out to the neighboring countries.
Projects should be exemplary, make use of novel and innovative means of building trust, and have a realistic and economical budget calculation.
BST and RBSG encourage applicants to be creative and bold. Project ideas can focus on creating various platforms (environment, music, sports, etc.) that bring together people from territories involved in conflicts, on facilitating contacts between state actors in the South Caucasus and the surrounding regions in non-formal settings, on using different media tools (traditional and/ or new) to foster mutual understanding, etc.
The average grant will be around 23,000 USD (about 18,000 EUR). Multilateral projects may exceed that amount in exceptional cases.
 
Application and Selection

The entire program administration is carried out by BST on behalf of both partners.
The Robert Bosch Stiftung and the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation invite interested organizations to apply per the below mentioned contact information.
Decisions about selection and funding of the submitted projects will be taken jointly by representatives of both donors.
A grant letter to the selected projects will be issued by the end of May 2016, and respectively, November 2016.
Applicants are strongly advised to submit proposals for projects that will take longer than 6 months in the March 2016 call.
Applications have to be sent to [email protected]
Two different application deadlines are offered in the 2016 - 2017 Call. The partners recommend applying in spring since funds are limited.
 
1) For the March 17, 2016 deadline, interested organizations are invited to submit project proposals from February 17, 2016 until March 17, 2016, 22:00 in Bucharest, Romania (UTC+3:00). 
The projects must be completed by April 2017 and reported to BST within one month of the project’s completion. The maximum duration of the project should not exceed 11 months.
 
2) For the July 15, 2016 deadline, interested organizations are invited to submit project proposals only from June 13, 2016 until July 15, 2016, at 22:00 in Bucharest, Romania (UTC+3:00).
The projects must be completed by February 2017 and reported to BST within one month of the project’s completion. The maximum duration of the project should not exceed 6 months.
Project proposals must be submitted in English only, using the application and budget forms from BST’s webpage:
 
Narrative Form
Budget Form
 
Grantees must submit the final reports in English only, using the two forms below from BST’s webpage:
 
Narrative Form
Budget Form
 
Interested parties may consult the following contact persons, who are prepared to provide advanced consultation if needed:
Nino Liluashvili – BST representative for Armenia and Georgia ([email protected])
Mehriban Rahimli – BST representative for Azerbaijan ([email protected])
Ana Aelenei  – BST representative for Ukraine ([email protected])
Dinu Toderascu – BST representative for Moldova ([email protected])
 
BST and RBSG encourage the applicants seeking to develop projects that may exceed the maximum duration and budget to contact BST representatives for consultations.