We embrace pro bono superpowers of the corporate communities and harness them in favor of mission driven organisations (NGOs and Social entrepreneurs) to ensure their agility and resilience to effectively tackle societal challenges. Thus we unleash the subdued potential of the vast group of professionals to do good and to actively engage in civic society matters. Bridging this group with causes could drastically change the activism level and participation in societal and democratic processes.

Sofia and a network of urban areas and towns countrywide

Challenge is twofold:
-the level of civic engagement in initiatives and charitable causes and trust in the work of CSOs is low leading to passive behavior and low interest in democratic and social process
-there is a lack of specific expertise in the non-profit teams in areas more traditionally connected with the corporate sector (marketing, communication, sales) making it hard for NGOs to ensure stability/efficiency in their work and funding.
The disparities between the city and town/village reality is big and there is place for bridging the professionals from these communities. The spontaneous Covid support collaborations in 2020 made evident the need for systemic action to gather and calibrate available in the society professional support and include it into everyday NGO work.

-NGO's and social enterprises' practitioners - typical profile (OSIS, 2017) of CSOs is of a small organisation with 10000 EUR annual turnover, having its personnel mostly temporary or on a voluntary basis.
-Citizens, professionals with diverse expertise , shifting from “feeling good” employees’ voluntary work activities, who are ready to engage closely with causes and contribute for social and environmental change.
In this pilot project we’d like to reach 30 CSOs and at least 100 individuals as pro bono experts, engaged with the initiatives and work of the civic organisations.

Project plan consist of the following major sections, closely interlinked:
-Network building - it is the core of the project aiming to build a community of pro bono leaders that will invest time to co-create the pro bono model, to bring sides together, share knowledge and get better understanding for the model - will include mix of online and offline events (discussions, workshops, bilateral meetings) aiming to present, get support for the idea, get data and validation, as well the number of organisations and individuals to participate in the pilot model and get lessons learned from partners.
-Awareness Campaign – to address/motivate the professionals to spare time within causes; the NGO to search for them; to demonstrate benefits for all sides and encourage pro-bono leadership; to disseminate model and encourage more civic participation.
-Training Events, mentoring and resources – civic education and support for cohesion development. Professionals to effectively engage, recognize the specifics of mission driven work, understand their civic role and powers to contribute for positive change in society, etc. Support to NGOs identifying their pro bono needs and managing the help received.
-Pilot model - elaboration of process and methodology and start of work, developing the technological means (web platform).

Completing the project will give:
-Community of individuals working for the common good established, its efforts organised and efficient
-Cocreated, piloted and validated model of pro bono support from corporate specialists to civic organisations
-System approach and pro-bono movement in action
Having these results will enable the Pro bono idea to be recognized as a force for empowerment to underprivileged by recognition of the CSO role and provision of support to its work and will reach a higher level of civic participation in the social causes - which in time will foster common understanding and empathy towards causes that separate the society for years; topics like civil rights, inequalities, environment, poverty, education and in the end will form engaged and responsible citizens.

The culture for social and political participation is still underdeveloped in Bulgaria and the current concept creates more options to foster such engagement by bringing significant initiatives closer to people with well-developed capacities to contribute. It will make possible for local and community leaders to get support in achieving concrete steps towards fulfilling their missions, and it will also make different societal issues more visible and will provoke experts with diverse expertise and skills to react. The training component will build on the capacities of all actors involved to openly discuss societal challenges, to plan and organise common solutions and to work together on diverse levels in society - local, community, national.

For this project we mix first hand experience and extensive knowledge of our team members as working activists, practitioners, consultants and trainers for NGO and Social entrepreneurs capacity building. We accumulate more than 20 years of professional work and knowledge in the intersection between communities and causes. In our 5 permanent team members expertise we cover organisational development, networking and civic engagement, cross-sector partnership, collaborative and participatory actions, communities cohesion, diversity and inclusion with focus to vulnerable, social work and social business, corporate experience, business networking, CSR, marketing, communication, storytelling and finance. Moreover we work with expanded staff of over 25 dedicated experts/trainers.

personnel costs - 19100 EUR
events organisation and community meetings - 5300 EUR
communication and PR - 4800 EUR
travel and accommodation -2000 EUR
web platform - 3200 EUR

Our idea is based on well developed system approaches in other countries. For our team will be of great support to get ideas for putting the pro bono concept in national and European context, to have shared lessons and practices from our colleagues on the platform.