After the situation around COVID-19 put its capacity building programmes on hold, ERSTE Foundation NGO Academy was challenged to find ways to support civil society organisations in their cause through different formats. From April onwards, 11 webinars on various topics have been offered to its community, mostly focusing on providing support in times of uncertainty. The response to our offers was overwhelming. More than 550 participants registered to expand their knowledge on a broad variety of topics, including fundraising, social media, digitalisation and many others.

Last week, the third and final round prior to the summer break started with Prof. Karin Bjerregard Schlüter and a deep-dive into digitalisation strategies for civil society organisations. In addition, phil!omondo’ Björn Schmitz enlightened participants of his webinar with tools and techniques for online meetings. Finally, Oana Toiu & Ciprian Stanescu will inform on the impact of COVID-19 on civil society organisations’ model of operations in late June.

Before we head into the summer break, we would like to express our gratitude: on the one hand to our faculty, who decided to spontaneously share their expertise through new channels. As one participant stated, “the enthusiasm and the openness of the lecturers to take more time with the participants was moving. The content was well-structured and the presentation interactive.”

On the other hand, and most importantly, we would like to thank our participants, who shared their perspective in these times.