Updates

Alliance for Gender Equality in Europe

The Alliance for Gender Equality in Europe recently gathered grantee partners, members, and advisors in Athens, fostering a strong, collaborative community united by our shared commitment to advancing gender equality across Europe. As part of our ongoing effort to understand the evolving needs of our partners, the Alliance team has also conducted site visits in the Netherlands, Spain, France, Hungary, Sweden, and the Czech Republic. These visits deepened our appreciation of their impactful work and strengthened relationships rooted in trust.

 In parallel, Alliance members have engaged in peer-learning sessions focused on intersectionality and trust-based grantmaking. We've documented key insights from our learning journey, offering a resource to those interested in transforming their grantmaking practices.

Gender equality organisations are essential in building a fairer, more inclusive Europe, yet they often face significant financial challenges. To better understand the funding landscape, the Alliance is commissioning research to examine the support from private foundations and the EU reaching organisations led by women, girls, trans, and non-binary people in the EU.

Keep up with the latest updates from the Alliance by following them on their website, newsletter and LinkedIn.

Civitates and European AI & Society Fund

AI funding- why it matters now?

By Catherine Miller, Director, AI & Society Fund and Elisa Peter, Director, Civitates

Europe is where the rules for Artificial Intelligence (AI) are being written and it’s where a vision for AI that serves people and society can grow. As Trump prepares to take over the US Presidency, Europe will need to double down on its commitment to be a leading voice in tech accountability and responsible innovation. Empowering public interest voices that can put people at the heart of the debate on AI will be a catalyst for its success. That's why European AI & Society Fund and Civitates are seizing this opportunity with new grantmaking on implementation and enforcement of regulations to address AI harms experienced on the ground and enforcement of Europe's recent platform regulation, Digital Services Act.

AI technologies are becoming deeply integrated into all aspects of our lives.  While they might offer numerous benefits, they also pose significant risks if not regulated properly. Recent AI developments have taken place in an environment where either regulation did not exist or was ignored by tech companies prioritizing rapid growth despite its disrupting effects. This has led to issues such as market concentration, increased surveillance, exacerbation of racial and gender injustice through biased systems, pollution of our information environment through AI generated content and algorithmic amplification and environmental degradation due to AI’s energy consumption.

The European Union has responded with a range of regulations, including the AI Act, the Digital Markets Act, and the Digital Services Act. These regulations aim to address diverse tech-related challenges and to set new transparency and accountability standards. However, the true test of these regulations still lays ahead of us: without a proper implementation and enforcement, these regulations risk becoming ineffective and repeating the failed promises of the GDPR, by establishing principles that are flagrantly breached in practice.

In this regard, civil society organisations play a vital role in bridging the gap between regulation and practice. They work on the ground to ensure that regulations are enforced and that the rights and interests of the public and individuals are upheld, where tech companies and state overreach have caused harm. The recent tragedy involving a 14-year-old boy who took his own life, allegedly after being encouraged by an AI chatbot that allows users to create customizable characters, is a heartbreaking demonstration of why proper safeguards are needed especially to protect vulnerable groups.

The European AI & Society Fund has just launched a €4m Making Regulation Work programme to support such efforts. This programme includes:

• AI Accountability Grants: Offering up to €200,000 for projects to use new and existing laws to deliver accountability and justice over the use of AI.
• AI Act Implementation Grants: Supporting immediate work to promote social justice in the implementation of the European AI Act with grants of up to €60,000.

Similarly, over the summer, Civitates launched a €1M open call to support organisations in France and Ireland with up to €200,000 each. This initiative focuses on the national enforcement of the Digital Services Act and other EU tech regulations, aiming to improve online public discourse and address how technology mediates information. The result of the selection will be announced in early December. By empowering civil society organizations to shape direction of AI and technology, Civitates and the European AI & Society Fund want to support a new vision for technology that is accountable, inclusive, and serves people and society as well as democratic institutions and processes.

European Fund For The Balkans

This November will see the 5th edition of the regional "Trees of Friendship" initiative. It was originally conceived as a way to take responsibility and plant the number of trees needed to offset the carbon emissions caused by the EFB's business flights. Yet, the idea of planting trees simultaneously with many partners in all countries of the region has generated a lot of interest. EFB is actively approached by partners with requests to participate. Thanks to strong regional support, 2100 trees have been planted so far in 15 cities across the Western Balkans. This year, 600 trees will be planted in 9 cities, highlighting the much-needed regional solidarity in the fight against air pollution and climate change.

Keep updated through the EFB website.

EPIM

A little over a year ago, EPIM adopted a co-leadership model, making it one of the first major philanthropic organisations in Europe to do so.

Co-directors Sophie Ngo-Diep and Hrishabh Sandilya reflect on this journey: the highs, the challenges, and how shared leadership boosts capacity, innovation, and a collaborative culture, as they interviewed each other for Philea – Philanthropic Europe Association. You will read their interview on the Philea website.

JAFOWA

To support its growth, JAFOWA has strengthened its operational team.

Médoune Mbengue, a Senegalese agricultural engineer with 10 years of experience, joined JAFOWA at the end of August. As Deputy Programme Manager, based in his native Senegal, he brings to the programme his in-depth knowledge of the agricultural and agroecological sectors in West Africa.

JAFOWA is now led by a duo: Laurent Grolleau as Programme Manager and Médoune. With this new structure, JAFOWA is able to work more closely with its partner farmers' organizations and refine its understanding of local issues. This should result in enhanced integration of JAFOWA into its ecosystem, at an opportune time before the launch of a new JAFOWA call for proposals in 2025.