GURT Resource Centre is the leading national centre for societal information and expertise. Since 1995 we have been committed to better Ukraine through strengthening civil society.
Contributing to democratic societal transformations by using and developing the potential of civil society organizations, GURT exists for the conscious and successful Ukraine where civil society ensures dignity, confidence, and trust among citizens at local and national levels.
GURT becomes an action platform of Ukrainian civil society organizations to mobilize active citizens and to implement societal changes based on European values: dignity, responsibility and respect.
Ukrainian people fight with Russian invasion which drains economical potential and social capital of our country already for two years. Effective support to Ukrainian citizens, especially those who suffered from the conflict in Donbas area, becomes the main challenge for conscious leaders of civil society institutions in Ukraine. It should be mentioned that 80% of funds GURT raised in 2015 was used to support small business development, reform educational institutions, and promote the practice of self-help groups. In 2015 we proudly served many soldiers of Ukrainian army and their family members, internally displaced people and vulnerable groups of Ukrainian youth.
It is already 20 years since GURT Resource Centre was established. We exist and grow only because of you – our clients. Today GURT is the largest information network of active citizens which unites above 26 thousand people from all regions of Ukraine. Every day we proudly and responsibly serve their needs in societal information which helps active citizens to become more effective developing our country. More than 10 thousand leaders of civil society institutions, local authority representatives, and entrepreneurs benefited from GURT’s capacity development programs. Your trust empowers us to continue improving GURT’s capacity development services.
It is extremely important to mention the significant contribution of volunteers to overall GURT’s societal impact. Many thanks to all GURT’s volunteers for building with us conscious and successful Ukraine!
And of course, I am happy to invite all interested in building civil society in Ukraine to continue active usage of GURT in securing your own development goals.
I wish success to all of us!
If you're reading this text, you might belong to the Ukrainian minority, which participates in the activities of NGOs, activist groups, creative initiatives, clubs, volunteer movement, in everything that is related to civil society. 20 years ago we created GURT to evolve this minority to the majority.
The resonance of citizen activism, which has occurred since the Revolution of Dignity, the annexation of the Crimea and the outbreak of hostilities in Donbas, brought hope that the social transformations will move forward faster. Our common task is to maintain this wave of change by our everyday efforts and turn the Ukrainian society transformation into stable and irreversible process. Passivity, hope for a miracle, and closeness support the false sense of security and comfort – these are the national character traits that make us vulnerable and uncompetitive in the modern world.
Tell your friends about GURT and we will help them look wider at this world and find fellow-thinkers. Let’s help each other and overcome together barriers that once seemed to be inexpugnable!
Twenty years, it is more than the era for modern Ukraine. Hundreds of NGOs have been created, dissolved and forgotten. Hundreds of NGOs have changed their priorities, activities, and corporate values many times under pressure of circumstances and financial difficulties. Hundreds of other organizations were neglected, abandoned, and quitted by their founders. Twenty years in today Ukraine, it is more than a century in some other span of history.
During this time GURT has never stopped its activities. A great number of GURT successful projects has served as an example for other NGOs members and thousands of civil society activists in Ukraine.
GURT is the resource centre for NGO development. This activity direction has always remained the priority. It includes not only training of other organizations’ employees, not only published textbooks and success stories of Ukrainian and international CSOs, not only GURT newsletter and web-portal, which today is one of the most powerful and informative in the country, bringing together thousands of people from around the world. It is also leaders of dozens of NGOs raised by GURT, corporate values incorporated by activists in Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Belarus and many other countries, advanced technologies that are used by hundreds of other organizations after our introduction. Finally GURT is the continuity of traditions within the organization, the stable Board and effective management system.
This is what we can be proud of today and that we are obligated to maintain and develop tomorrow.
These twenty years have flown like meteorites in the summer night sky. We hope under each of its fire traces in the sky there are someone’s accomplished desires, realized dreams.
GURT Resource Centre conducts annual audit in accordance with the international standards on auditing issued by International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). LLC Audit Company «LEO AUDIT CENTR» carried out the audit of GURT Resource Centre for the year 2015. The full audit report is available at GURT web-portal.
| Cash donations received 2015 | |
|---|---|
| European Commission | 1,559 |
| Monsanto Fund | 1,218 |
| World Jewish Relief | 1,162 |
| Swiss Cooperation Office Ukraine | 4,512 |
| Charles Stewart Mott Foundation | 633 |
| United Nations Office Ukraine | 45 |
| Ukraine Social Investment Fund | 402 |
| Other | 2 |
| Total cash donations received | 9,533 |
| Interest on deposit | 32 |
| Total cash receipts | 9,565 |
| Cash spent | |
| Conferences, workshops, meetings, events | (3,802) |
| Information activities | (1,146) |
| Subgrants | (3,229) |
| Project management | (1,290) |
| Total cash spent | (9,467) |
| Administrative expenses | (1,363) |
| Foreign exchange and translation differences | 1,088 |
| Fundraising expenses | (431) |
| Total resources expended | (706) |
| Net increase in cash and cash equivalents | 23 |
| Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the year | 1,388 |
| Transfer to bank deposits | 631 |
| Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year | 1,411 |
To support people who demonstrate responsibility and inspiration to change their lives, GURT develops small and medium entrepreneurship in Ukraine by implementing the projects “Small Business Development in Rural Communities of Ukraine” and “Development of Women Entrepreneurship in Ukraine”.
In 2015 GURT provided consultations and grants for starting up business to 36 entrepreneurs from rural communities in Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, and Zhytomyr oblasts. Moreover, GURT conducted trainings “Start Your Business” and “Improve Your Business” for more than 120 entrepreneurs.
According to monitoring results, 58% of entrepreneurs who received GURT’s support have either increased or expect to boost profitability of their businesses. It is worth noticing that despite further stagnation of Ukrainian economy; only 3% of “Development of Small Entrepreneurship in Small Rural Communities in Ukraine” project participants have experienced profitability loss of their businesses.
During 2012-2015, due to GURT, more than 460 entrepreneurs gained knowledge and practical skills in starting up and developing their small businesses and nearly 20% of the participants were officially registered
Anna Svietik, the winner of GURT project “Small business development in rural communities of Ukraine”, has worked in garment industry for 20 years. Nowadays Anna and her team of more than 20 employees produce children's clothing and bedding in Kostiantynivka village, Cherkasy Oblast, which is sold in the chain stores Manna in Kyiv, Cherkasy, and Smila (Cherkasy Oblast), as well as in online clothing store M&A. It is worth noticing that Anna’s garment enterprise uses only natural fibres.
Today its production profitability reaches 20-30%, and sales revenue is about 60-100 thousand hryvnas per month. The entrepreneur had a huge practical interest in participating in the GURT project, as she had gained new knowledge of commercializing her sewing business. After training within GURT project Anna Svietik participated in the competition “STALO: business solutions for sustainable development”. Selected in top 50 out of 120 competition nominees, Anna took the fifth position based on the people voting results. Now businesswoman is working on promoting the Svyetik brand “Svietik” abroad.
У GURT Business Camp, that took place on June 19-20, 2015 in Kyiv, brought together 100 entrepreneurs, community and CSO leaders, representatives of governmental authorities, and donor organizations. They shared their opinions on the perspectives of social and economic development of Ukraine, presented successful cases of setting up social start-ups, and developed joint projects to make their communities more prosperous.
Since its foundation, GURT Resource Centre recognizes the importance of volunteers’ contribution to the development of civil society in Ukraine and intends to systematically promote volunteering in its broad sense.
GURT invests a lot of efforts in order to make bring the modern sense of volunteering to people. Besides three worldwide criteria of the volunteering concept (voluntary and conscious activity, free of charge help), we began to mark the fourth criterion, specific for Ukrainian context. Volunteering is an activity performed in one’s spare time. In 2001, when Ukraine joined the celebration of the International Year of Volunteering, it was important to correctly explain the phenomenon of volunteering to journalists and citizens. In cooperation with Peace Corps volunteer Hallie Torrell, who used to work in GURT, we made the first official translation and publication of the volunteer management bestseller – book of American experts Rick Lynch and Steve McCartney. It was the breakthrough in volunteering promotion
In 2015 GURT Volunteer program reached the new level. Now our team of volunteers unites 28 motivated and skilled civic journalists, translators, assistants, illustrators, videographers, photographers, video editors from different oblasts of Ukraine.
The study circles based on Sweden model became the effective tool for creating civil journalists’ community, which is constantly reinforced by new activists from all over Ukraine. In 2015 GURT volunteers and staff have created more than 320 unique text and audio materials highlighting socially important issues of Ukrainian civil society.
When GURT had announced the vacancy of social reporter, I immediately decided to apply for it. I received a chance to become the member of GURT team. I can use my knowledge and skills to the good. Thanks to GURT I became acquainted with many interesting people. I especially enjoy communicating with people who are not just the experts in their sphere, but are also proactive and committed to positive changes. It inspires and motivates me for action
On December 5, 2015, at the International Volunteer Day, GURT conducted the National Consultations “How CSOs can contribute to implementation of Sustainable Development Goals?”.
Our cooperation was excellent. We benefitted from GURT’s large network of partners in its established and trusted position in Ukrainian civil society
Today GURT web-portal is a number one civil society media and a communication platform for civil society and community leaders which offers the deep insight into civil society development in Ukraine. Publications on GURT web-portal cover various aspects of civil society development, which ultimately are the basis for discussions.
We use a set of different tools initiating an open and inclusive dialogue on GURT web-portal: interviews with famous Ukrainians, experts, active citizens, CSOs’ and charities’ executives, representatives of governmental institutions, and local communities’ leaders.
This year we published more than 90 unique interviews reflecting and promoting the values of civil society. We continued to focus our content and to structure it as the “Issue of the Month”. In 2015 we highlighted the issues of small business, civic participation, social entrepreneurship, sustainable development, and volunteerism.
In 2015, we improved GURT web portal by increasing the space on our main page to present our program activities and to deepen the readers to the website content.
Thanks to GURT we can address to our target audience and cooperate with civil society representatives in a prompt, professional and constructive way. It is important for our organization to have the platform where we can share analytical opinions, interesting offers, materials on controversial social topics with our audience – otherwise, there will be no step forward
We differentiated the content distribution methods – except text version of GURT web-portal we have launched audio broadcasting that was developed into a full-scale online radio channel. GURT Radio – the alternative online audio resource for civil society development in Ukraine – is designed to broadcast high quality societal content and promote active citizenship.
In 2015, we launched 8 new radio programs that have presented funding and capacity building opportunities for CSOs, provided CSOs with legal advice, and shared success stories of social entrepreneurs.
In 2015, online-toolkit on civic radio journalism was developed. It says how to create high-quality audio podcast and explains the features, terms and genres of civic radio journalism.
While volunteering within the GURT Radio, I learned to build a constructive conversation with respondents, became familiar with audio editing program allowing to work with sound and voice. I also gained skills of covering socially important topics. Voicing the programs “On the weekend” and “Opportunities” made me understand how to work with my voice: intonation, proper breathing, meaningful pauses, and pronunciation. The acquired skills are useful in everyday life: people often invite me to participate as a speaker on different events. Besides, I became anchorwoman of the talk show “Consolidated opinion” on the new Internet radio channel
GURTradio Camp was held on June 18–19, 2015. 20 civic journalists from different regions of Ukraine got an opportunity to improve their skills in producing multimedia success stories and learned more about community development in Ukraine. As a result, 10 multimedia success stories of entrepreneurs supported by GURT Resource Centre were created.
During 2015 GURT has provided over 3,2 million UAH for social investments to Ukrainian communities in order to improve societal and economical infrastructure at local level.
Due to the results achieved by GURT in developing local communities in Kyiv oblast in 2011-2015, GURT has become the member of European Community Development Network.
Since 1995 GURT Resource Centre has been actively developing local communities in Ukraine through fostering civic activism and strengthening local self-governance. During 2011-2014 GURT facilitated a complex transformation process of Novy Korogod village in Kyiv oblast that was founded in 1986 as a settlement for people who were forced to leave their homes due to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. This transformation process included key components of GURT’s community development know-how. As a result, the community has drafted a community development plan that shaped its future. Based on the community development plan concrete initiatives were designed and implemented. These initiatives were focused on the provision of social, economic, and cultural rights of the community members. Successful implementation of projects supported by GURT contributed to the community cohesion. It was proved by the results of village head elections in which Olha Mykhaliova, the community leader and one of village civic activists got voices of 94% of the villagers.
During October-November, 2015, GURT continued to train self-help animators and organized 3 sessions of the Fourth All-Ukrainian Self-Help School in Kyiv.
18 CSOs and community leaders from different regions of Ukraine were engaged in the project. As a result, 8 self-help groups were created. The target audience of the newly established groups s people willing to raise awareness on financial management; people who cannot realize their life destination; people who are searching the way to implement their internal personality resources; families in difficulties; moms-IDPs.
Self-Help School is the perfect opportunity to find new partners. I have worked within the self-help groups for the first time and realized how useful this technique is. During the first session I was inspired to create the self-help group on the basis of our organization. It is amazing when people try to handle problems they face through their own efforts, while helping the others
The one day conference in open space format “People and Money: Receipts for Community Development” took place on July 20, 2015 in Kyiv. During one day intensive work 60 representatives of small businesses, local communities, governmental authorities and civil society organizations drafted 8 projects aimed at economic and social development of their communities.
Within the project “Social Infrastructure Empowerment” funded by Ukrainian Social Investment Fund GURT organized three study visits “Community Development Models” to Kyiv oblast for over 60 representatives of rural communities from Lviv, Kirovohrad, and Vinnytsia oblasts.
During the study visits Borodianka and Novy Korogod communities of Kyiv oblast presented their success stories. Events included meetings with community leaders and local authorities, presentation of community development plans and successful local project as well as a training session “Community development models in Kyiv oblast”.
Also, within the project “Social Infrastructure Empowerment” GURT organized 94 trainings on community development, leadership, and partnership building for over 1500 representatives of rural communities from Lviv, Kirovograd, and Vinnytsya oblasts.
At the end of 2014 GURT stated the implementation of the project “Public-private partnership to improve sanitary education in Ukraine” funded by Swiss Cooperation Office Ukraine and Geberit International Sales AG. The project goal is to contribute to the improvement of the VET institutions capacity to offer market-oriented, practical and up-to-date sanitary education in Ukraine. During 2015 GURT has facilitated the development and adoption of the new sanitary education standard and training course. In July 2015 Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine has approved the developed sanitary education standard.
Six VET schools participating in the project have received materials and modern sanitary equipment to organize training and resource centres to provide labour market oriented trainings in the sanitary sector.
On December 17, 2015, Tamara Martseniuk, PhD in Social Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Sociology at the National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” held the public lecture on gender policy in Ukraine and challenges of the European integration.
GURT Resource Centre initiated the event together with the Department of Sociology at the National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” within the project “Gender Policies and EU Integration: Experience of the Visegrad 4 Eastern Partnership”. In total more than 40 participants, including scientists, analysts, human rights activists, social workers, professors, students and other socially active citizens interested in the subject of gender equality took part in the event.
NGO Connection Day 7, organized by Microsoft Ukraine and GURT Resource Centre, took place on April 10, 2015 in Kyiv. Besides information technologies, the key topics of the event were successful practices of the CSOs in the area of national defence, reforms, and European integration of Ukraine. NGO Connection Day 7 brought together more than 100 executives and managers of national and regional non-profit organizations.
The 8th NGO Connection Day: Upgrading with Windows 10, organized by Microsoft and GURT Resource Centre, took place on November 23, 2015in Kyiv. The purpose of the event was to give Ukrainian nongovernmental organizations the opportunity to establish partnerships, learn more about the services Microsoft can propose to non-governmental organizations, and show them successful examples of using IT in NGO sector. The 8th NGO Connection Day brought together more than 80 executives and managers of national and regional organizations.
On May 16, 2015, Ukraine joined the Global Day of Citizen Action for the first time. This event was initiated by CIVICUS World Alliance for Citizen Participation, and took place simultaneously in more than 55 countries of the world. People around the world have shared their opinions on “civic space” – freedom of expression, association, and assembly.
GURT organized the Global Day of Citizen Action providing platform to connect people across Ukraine through sharing success stories, skills and lessons learned. GURT engaged around 1500 ordinary citizens by asking them whether they feel free to speak out, organise, and take action. We interacted with citizens in a friendly way that allowed them to give their real opinion on “civic space” in Ukraine and to create awareness of their citizens’ rights.
Global Day of Citizen Action in Ukraine was held in 10 oblasts such as Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovs’k, Zaporizhzhia, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Odessa, Poltava, Cherkassy and Sumy. To organize Global Day of Citizen Action GURT involved 14 regional partners and 130 volunteers.
On April 25, 2015, GURT organized YouthSpark Live. Over 100 young people have planned their future in the IT sector due to Microsoft Corporation and GURT Resource Centre initiative. In addition, participants shared their professional experience and received mentors’ support for the positive change in Ukraine and all over the world.
Innovative technologies are already going beyond the limits of IT market development. They are changing the people's lifestyles, transforming education system, increasing the labour performance, and economic competitiveness in general. Microsoft is focusing not only on the development of its business in Ukraine but we also support local communities by investing in education, expanding people's and organizations’ access to modern technologies. Last year, together with our permanent partner GURT Resource Centre, we realized several projects, among which are the annual conference “Technology for Good” and NGO Connection Day. We also organized YouthSpark Live – the event, that united youth business leaders, student and civil organizations, who are already using Microsoft technologies to realize their potential through innovations. We greatly value our strategic partnership with GURT and weexpecti new mutual collaborations in near future, the main aim of which is to provide an opportunity to achieve high goals for each organization and person in Ukraine
On September 26, 2015, 11 regional centers of Ukraine joined the flash-mob “InForm your community”, initiated by the GURT Resource Centre within the Citizen Participation Week which lasted from 21 to 27 September in the Central and Eastern Europe countries.
During the flash-mob over 1500 active citizens from Kyiv, Kharkiv, Chernivtsi, Khmelnytskyi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernihiv, Ternopil, Vinnytsia, Poltava, Kirovograd and Severodonetsk simultaniously assembled pieces of a large picture of the symbols of their cities to attract the attention of the Ukrainians and to inform them on the importance of participating in the development of their communities. To organize the All-Ukrainian flash-mob “InForm your community” GURT involved 10 regional partners and more than 70 volunteers.
On December 5, 2015 in International Volunteer Day, GURT conducted the National Consultations “How CSOs can contribute to implementation of Sustainable Development Goals?”. The event, initiated by The United Nations Office in Ukraine, United Nations Volunteers and GURT Resource Centre, was held simultaneously in 11 cities of Ukraine, namely, in Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhya, Kyiv, Kramatorsk, Lviv, Odesa, Poltava, Severodonetsk, Kharkiv, Chernivtsi, Chernihiv. The event was aimed at raising CSO leaders’ awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals implementation, and providing to the UN and the Government of Ukraine a public opinion upon the process of the Sustainable Development nationalization. The National Consultations involved 15 regional partners and 300 participants.
