Non-Governmental Organizations Fund

The start of the implementation of the NGO fund in Lithuania is the 3rd of July 2007 – entrance into force of the Grant Agreements for the financing of the Block grants for enhancement of the NGOs sector in Lithuania under the EEA Financial Mechanism and Norwegian Financial Mechanism.

The purpose of the NGO Fund is to support NGOs by developing their institutional capacity, with the overall objective of strengthening the democratic and civil society and reinforce the NGO sector in Lithuania.

The budget of the NGO fund - 5 million EUR will be allocated to two categories of sub-projects:

• small sub-projects: grant amount per sub-project – min. 10 000 EUR and max. 50 000 EUR;
• large sub-projects: grant amount per sub-project – min. 50 001 EUR and max. 100 000 EUR.

Eligible applicants:

• Associations, including Red Cross;
• Public institutions, except the ones established by governmental institutions;
• Charity and support funds.

Activities to be supported under the Fund include the following: 

• Research;
• Trainings, conferences, seminars and other events (including practical activities);
• Public information programmes and training of community members;
• NGOs’ institutional reinforcement;
• Partnership building, exchange of good practices
• International cooperation.

The open call for small sub-projects and large sub-projects was published on the 6th of March 2008. During the call the total amount of 390 applications had been received. After the value-for-money assessment 220 sub-projects (139 small sub-projects and 81 big sub-projects) were evaluated as being eligible for the support under the NGO fund.

The NGO fund’s Monitoring Committee in its meeting on the 3rd of February decided to approve the lists of small sub-projects and big sub-projects to be financed from NGO fund by observing proportion of about 50 percent for small sub-projects and 50 percent for big sub-projects. The whole budget of the NGO fund will be allocated through one call without having any further calls.

The implementation of the sub-projects started in June 2009 when the implementation agreements between the project promoters, the Intermediary and Central project management agency were signed. Max. duration of the sub-projects is 12 months.

The Intermediary of the NGO fund is the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Lithuania. Operational management and administration of the Fund as well as supervision of implementation of sub-projects has been entrusted to the Secretariat, which was selected via public tender.