As part of the project “Empowering Civil Society for Ukraine’s Resilience and Recovery” (The Impulse Project), a competition titled “Institutional Impulse for Young Civil Society Organizations in the Most Affected Regions” has been announced.
The competition aims to support the institutional development of young civil society organizations that are already working in communities most affected by the war and are involved in early recovery, development, and resilience-building processes.
Local and regional civil society organizations, public associations, charitable foundations, and community self-governance bodies registered between January 2024 and June 2025 inclusive are invited to participate. Organizations must have at least one or one-and-a-half years of experience working in communities and a proven track record of implementing community initiatives.
“The war has given rise to a new wave of CSOs that are striving to address the challenges facing their communities and work with various social groups—internally displaced persons, veterans, people with disabilities, and the families of the fallen. In many cases, this stems from a sincere desire to do something helpful. Motivations can vary—often deeply personal: some have become IDPs themselves, while others have veterans in their families. But if the initiative is sincere, yet people lack sufficient experience and do not know how to properly organize processes and ensure governance within the organization, over time this can lead to frustration, a loss of faith in one’s own abilities, and an inability to implement what was planned. This is especially true in conditions of constant fatigue, which only exacerbates these challenges,” notes Oleksiy Orlovsky, director of the “Democracy and Good Governance” program at the International Renaissance Foundation.
He emphasizes that this is precisely why the purpose of these institutional grants and the project as a whole is to serve as a starting point for young organizations, helping them define their own identity and the areas where their work can be most effective.
As Oleksiy Orlovsky notes, it is fundamentally important for the project to see evidence of concrete actions in the application forms: that the organization has already begun to act and can demonstrate tangible steps toward fulfilling its mission, even under difficult conditions.
Approximately 20–25 winning organizations will be selected through the competition. They will receive a small institutional grant (the optimal budget for a single project is 400,000 hryvnias) and participate in a mandatory training program on organizational development. The program will include training and consultations on strategic planning, streamlining internal policies and procedures, financial management and accounting, external communications, and advocacy, as well as workshops on gender mainstreaming, sustainable development, and transparency in CSO activities. Winners will also be invited to participate in networking events organized by the “Impulse” project.
Projects may last from 8 to 12 months. Implementation is expected to begin around May 2026.
The deadline for submitting applications is February 19, 2026, at 3:00 PM Kyiv time.
The results of the competition will be announced by April 10, 2026.
The Impulse Project is implemented by the International Renaissance Foundation and the East Europe Foundation with support from Norway and Sweden, and will run until 2027.
