The Civil Society Strengthening Project (CSSP) is a five year program that seeks to make Macedonia’s civil society a more effective, influential, and permanent partner alongside government and businesses in shaping the country’s present and future. CSSP’s approach is to support both a focused group of Leader NGOs and the sector as a whole in order to foster a better environment and increase resources for civil society, help NGOs achieve concrete results on issues that matter to citizens, and improve the sector’s image and understanding.

Focused Support to Leader NGOs

Part of CSSP’s innovative approach is to focus its support on a selected group of mission-driven NGOs to make them capable of serving as leaders in their sector of expertise or in their community, and acting as mentors and resources to other NGOs, thus raising the entire civil society sector in Macedonia to a new level. The diverse group of organizations includes issue-focused or service organizations, monitoring groups, issue-based coalitions or formal networks, professional associations and think tanks.  Selected NGOs represent diversity in geographic location and in gender and ethnic focus, as well as leadership and staffing. Their projects enable citizen participation in improving policies and practices relating to issues of their interest at either central or local levels that will foster Macedonia’s EU integration. In particular, they strive to make the decentralization process work for the citizens and to increase the anti-corruption efforts. 

In addition to a flexible range of grants, CSSP provides the Leader NGOs with individualized trainings, technical assistance, networking and mentoring. Through this capacity building program, Leader NGOs have access to consultations and training sessions specifically tailored to address their needs and to provide them with the appropriate resources, tools and support to strategically implement their project.  

Broad Support to the NGO Sector

In conjunction with its focused support to Leader NGOs, the CSSP consortium strives to promote the Macedonian civil society at a broader level. Through strong public outreach and strategic use of the media, CSSP helps the civil society to promote understanding of its role, knowledge of its activities and results achieved throughout the country. The project provides support to civil society in enhancing its knowledge of existing legislation, how to work within it and promote reforms in the legal framework, tax regime and fiscal policy. Finally, CSSP introduces new models in community and corporate philanthropy in order to stimulate new attitudes towards local resource mobilization and promote the sector’s sustainability.  

The CSSP Consortium

CSSP is a $7 million project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and managed by a consortium led by the Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC) that includes the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL), Konekt and the Macedonian Institute for Media (MIM). For the first three years of the project the Center for Institutional Development (CIRa) was a member of the consortium providing capacity building to NGOs and promoting domestic philanthropy. ISC has been in Macedonia since 1995. Through funding from USAID, ISC has implemented civil society development programs in Macedonia over the past fourteen years. The programs supported more than 470 Civil Society Organizations, and awarded more than 480 grants reaching thousands of direct beneficiaries and tens of thousands of indirect beneficiaries throughout the country.