Updates

Civitates

By the end of 2024, Civitates had selected 19 new grantee partners across our three portfolios for a total of about 3.5 million euros committed in grants, including in two Western European countries in which Civitates had never operated before (Greece and Austria).

The Civitates Steering Committee, which met in Oslo in November, approved a 4 million euro budget for 2025, and welcomed a number of new foundation partners.

Our priorities for 2025 are to launch open calls in our media portfolio (on-going) and in our tech & democracy (mid-February). We will also have a call for projects in Italy in our civic power portfolio (in June). We are planning a series of on-line and in person convenings for the new cohorts of grantees.

Our team is expanding to meet the needs of a growing pooled fund and we are currently recruiting for a Learning and Impact Manager (full-time role supported by the Bosch Foundation), and a half-time Grants and Programme Officer role (who will also support the EAISF on a half-time basis).

In an effort to spur cooperation with other democracy-donors, the Civitates Director will attend a global funders roundtable on re-imagining international support to democratic resilience (Canada) as well as a democracy futures (scenario planning) workshop (US) in February.

Our next Steering Committee meeting will take place in Warsaw on 25-26 March and will provide an opportunity to our foundation partners to meet with a half dozen Polish grantee organisations, as well as other stakeholders interested in supporting democracy.

The Inaugural EPIM Forum

EPIM hosted its inaugural Forum on the 13th and 14th of November 2024, bringing together 38 actors from across the migration ecosystem in Europe, in Brussels. The Forum consists of people with diverse lived experiences and expertise from civil society, government, private sector, social entrepreneurship, migrant activism, journalism, and philanthropy.

What the first Forum was about

Framed from a trust-building lens, the inaugural Forum offered participants a chance to reflect upon the current state of migration ecosystem and envision the transformation needed towards a regenerative, resilient, and forward-thinking ecosystem. We also had a chance to prototype some of these ambitions and put them in action, co-shaping the directions of EPIM’s Reimagining European Migration Governance cluster, guided by insights from the first-ever system map on migration governance.

Finally, the Executive Council – EPIM’s core governing unit was put in place, with Audrey Guichon, Carolina Gottardo, Elizabeth Kassinis, Eunice Romero, Hannes Einsporn, Ilaria Caramia, Janina Stürner-Siovitz and Letícia Ishibashi, serving on the council for its first term.

A Reminder – What is the Forum?

The EPIM Forum is a unique Social Lab for the migration ecosystem to catalyse and cultivate other ways of working and relating to one another. It is a dynamic space for connections, collective sensemaking, learning, and visioning. With the Forum, we hope to simultaneously build:

• a relational infrastructure for new social connections to emerge and collective intelligence to flourish,

• an imagination infrastructure to envision a future where everyone belongs,

• a sensemaking and learning body to check in on EPIM’s strategy and directions and on the ecosystem’s progress towards the vision.

At the heart of EPIM’s vision is the belief that to improve migration in Europe, we need a shared purpose and better collaboration across the ecosystem. This requires rethinking our relationships, understanding power dynamics, and reimagining resource flows. We see the Forum as a centre of gravity for the ecosystem where we can plant new seeds to flourish in the future.

European AI & Society Fund

In the year ahead, the European AI & Society Fund is committed to challenging the stranglehold of big tech vision for AI and shaping a future where AI truly serves people and society.

The response to our call for funders to help turn the tide on AI— so it can become a useful tool that’s harnessed with care to deliver the kinds of fair, inclusive and sustainable societies we all want to live in — has been nothing short of incredible.

Three new philanthropic partners and eight long-term supporters have joined forces, contributing over €5 million to our Breakthrough Initiative.

Getting this funding into the field to resource public interest advocates has been our priority. The appetite for this work has been remarkable - our two recent open calls for proposals received a record number of nearly 400 applications demonstrating the growing momentum and urgency to hold AI accountable.

European Fund for the Balkans

The European Fund for the Balkans is launching a new programme with the working title "Bridging divides". It will focus on activities that contribute to overcoming inter-ethnic divides and political polarisation and support related initiatives.

Nationalist rhetoric, the use of war narratives, and targeted disinformation campaigns have increased mutual distrust between people throughout the Balkans. Citizens feel compelled to take sides. These developments take place against a backdrop of war traumas, unresolved prejudices, and failed inter-ethnic reconciliation that have not been adequately addressed. Internal tensions and geopolitical manoeuvring in this crossroads region of Europe could continue to fuel political instability, even as the countries move closer to the EU.

The programme seeks to support activities that bring people from different ethnic and political groups together around common issues. The first phase of the programme will be a participatory design process, responding to existing needs and building on the knowledge of actors already working in the field. Implementation of the programme is expected to start in late summer 2025.

Jafowa

JAFOWA participated in the "Salone del Gusto - Terra Madre 2024" in Turin at the end of September, where it organised a workshop on "Partnerships for agro-ecological intensification and sustainable food systems in Africa".

The testimonies and contributions of a range of local and international actors converged on the role of farmers' organisations in promoting agro-ecological intensification.  Farmers' organisations are well placed to contribute to sustainable food systems in their territories, to engage in multi-stakeholder partnerships, and to engage with youth and women to plan for their development.

The team also conducted backstopping missions to Senegal and Burkina last October/December. JAFOWA is currently preparing its 4th Call for Proposals, which will be launched in March/April 2025.