The month of June saw two meetings with grantees from Nizhegorodskaya Oblast and Nizhnevartovsk take place
24 june 2022
On June 2, a meeting of experts representing SIBUR's Formula for Good Deeds social investment program with prospective grant contest entrants from Dzerzhinsk, Kstov, and Nizhny Novgorod was held on the premises of Nizhny Novgorod’s Invatur, a local establishment. The meeting was attended by representatives of local municipal institutions and non-profit organizations including current grant winners who have been implementing their 2022 projects as well as potential entrants in the program’s upcoming contests.
The meeting’s objective was to discuss planning for and implementation of socially relevant projects, proper preparation for making an application for a grant contest, common mistakes people make, and measures that can be taken to prevent them from happening. Mikhail Chetvertakov, head of ParaPlan, Dzerzhinsk’s non-profit association of wheelchair users, a partner of You can do anything!, an interregional inclusivity project, a member of the Formula for Good Deeds’ Public Council, and Andrey Bulanov, Chair of Invatur, Nizhny Novgorod’s regional non-profit organization focusing on cultural, social and work-related rehabilitation of wheelchair users with locomotor disabilities, discussed their experience with preparing grant contest applications that have on several occasions been chosen as contest winners.
I would like to note the event’s excellent organization and an impressive speakers’ lineup. I found the information presented at the meeting to be quite useful, we learned a lot of new important things as we plan to participate in Formula for Good Deeds’ contests this year. Employees of our units learned how to go about drafting their applications, while those who have participated before now know how to avoid making mistakes. My special thanks go out to the speakers for their presentations on inclusivity. This subject is now in the focus of the public’s attention and this has helped us better understand how to make our projects more accessible to all members of our society, Ivan Usov, Head of the Public Relations Department with Dzerzhinsk’s Centralized Library System, noted.
My impressions from the meeting are extremely positive. I really liked the way we were able to engage with the audience: they asked lots of questions which is a sign that they would be eager to take part in the Formula for Good Deeds’ contests. The meeting helped highlight some of the very acute and common problems that are faced by municipal organizations as they struggle to implement their projects that would not have otherwise become known to us without using this format of our communications. I was excited to be able to share my own experience, as a seasoned participant of these competitions, and to listen to my colleague Andrey Bulanov who also had a lot of useful things to share based on his extensive experience. I think that meetings such as this should be held as often as possible, including a couple of months ahead of the start of application gathering campaign, so that people would have ample time to prepare properly. For our part, we are ready to provide any support that is needed, Mikhail Chetvertakov commented.
The second meeting of this kind that was held in Nizhnevartovsk on June 17. It, too, brought together representatives of local municipal organizations and non-profit organizations. Those in attendance took an active part in the discussions that ensued, asked questions about participating in grant contests, and shared their thoughts on the benefits of such face-to-face meetings.
I think that events such as this one are important for a variety of reasons. Firstly, this is where a grant-giver can explain firsthand how the whole thing works, what one should focus their attention on when putting together an application, and where one can ask any questions right here and right now and get their answers right away. Secondly, even those who have taken part in these contests before can still learn about any new features of the upcoming competition and take these into account when submitting an entry. It's really great that there is an opportunity to have a direct dialogue. It is not often that grant-givers arrange meetings like these. And, thirdly, it’s an opportunity to establish communication between grant seekers representing the same town or city. At these meetings, you can meet with or see face-to-face those with whom you could not have had an opportunity to meet due to your current busy schedule and get right down to business discussing right there on the spot the issues that could otherwise have taken months to deal with by correspondence, Andrey Olkhovsky, Director Art Environment, an independent non-profit organization focusing on the development of youths’ initiatives, commented.
The grant contest for state-funded institutions and non-profit organizations has been held by SIBUR since 2016 on an annual basis. Registration of applications for the 8th grant contest will open in September. For further information, consult the Grant Contest section.