Piret Potisepp

international programs spend a lot of money on implementation of civictech projects. sustainability without donor's support of such projects is a challenge. some functions only if there is project money. no money - no website , platform, data, access to sometimes really important and interesting results! it is very frustrating when you read reports, researches with links on some external websites, platforms developed in the frame of ITA, other programmes and these links don't function any more because sites are down (no resources to pay domain, hosting, product maintenance etc.) is there any solution (technical?) for such situations? is there an option to create some portal with such products to keep all work accessible? are there resources, money and understanding why it is important?

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Watch my terrific IREX colleagues talk about progress towards our IREx 2025 strategic goals here!

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Professional Fundraising - Roots of Discontent From the perspective of many years in various saddles and having interviewed for many positions and projects, I have an opinion about how the recruitment process contributes to dissatisfaction with a role in Fundraising. I’ve toughened up how I interview for a job and developed some functional responses to several of the usual questions. What interviewers want, of course, is to confirm beliefs about Fundraisers, and proof common feelings about Fundraising are right. And that I won’t rock the organization’s boat. Good luck with that. Fundraisers must always remember we are the experts in the room. We have actually done the Fundraising most others have no clue about. We know how it works and why. Interviewing us should be a learning experience. What we tell interviewers, our family, neighbours, friends, about Fundraising and how we answer their questions is a Professional Skill and our responsibility to change what people think about our craft. It’s our job to control the narrative. ·      How many donors can you bring over from your last job? None. Donors give to organizations because they support its Mission. What I can do here is work hard at strengthening the relationship with current donors and increase the number of new donors who believe in what this organization is trying to achieve. I can nurture giving habits that bind donors to the cause. Tell me about what the organization does about Acquisition and Retention. How bad is the Lapsed Donor rate and what needs to be done? ·      What’s the largest gift you have brought in? Large enough for the strategy we designed, and the donor was happy they met their Philanthropic Objectives. What you want to know is what is the most difficult gift I worked on because some of the big ones were a breeze and some of the small ones took a lot more effort. I often had to manage teams of people to negotiate a gift. Let me tell you about what went into getting one particular gift and you can tell me whether the organization is prepared to invest in Fundraising the same way. ·      By the way, are the Board, staff, and volunteers prepared to take part in gift Cultivation, Engagement, Solicitation, and Stewardship? What resources will I have to do Professional-level Fundraising? ·      What are your salary expectations? You should tell me what you are prepared to invest in this position and me. The job posting does not mention a salary or range and my research doesn’t tell me how my skills and experience will be compensated. I’m also curious about whether you will pay the same amount to whoever gets the job? If I were a woman, for example, would that number change? Why? And tell me about your on-boarding practices.

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I have completed a short online course (4th–6th of June 2024) organized by Vilnius University, the Lithuanian Development Cooperation Platform, the Ministry of Social Security and Labor of the Republic of Lithuania, and the Network of Humanitarian Action (NOHA) Training in Humanitarian Action. Key topics like “Humanitarian Principles in Contemporary World Politics: Challenges and Opportunities," “Sphere Standards," “Navigating Legal Frontiers: Addressing Hybrid Threats in International Humanitarian Law," “Aid and Development Effectiveness," “Supporting Refugee Integration and Humanitarian Aid Management to Ukraine,” and “Humanitarian Negotiation and Humanitarian Mediation"  were taught.

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Join me and Bernadett Sebály for a discussion on what lessons can we draw from the Hungarian example for social impact work when democracy is on the line. I am particularly looking forward to this discussion because we will be in conversation with U.S. based organizers and (I'll share this as a sneak-peak into the discussion 😉 ) one of my key takeaways is that we need to listen more. I look forward to learning more about their work and how they are preparing for the upcoming changes. Link to register in the comments!

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Resist the Trap of Turning Inward In times of crisis for human rights and social justice, it’s easy to retreat into familiar spaces — focusing only on our supporters, followers, or organizations. But in doing so, we may miss the lessons that the current moment is teaching us. 2018 in Hungary was a similar moment of reckoning for pro-democracy and human rights advocates as today is in the U.S. After the initial shock and grief, we at the Társaság a Szabadságjogokért - Hungarian Civil Liberties Union asked ourselves tough questions: Why did people vote in ways that seemingly undermined their own rights? How are we perceived by society? Are we truly serving the needs of the communities we aim to protect? To answer these questions, we needed to engage more deeply with the people we serve — even those who might not share our values. I recently heard Stacey Abrams speak about the importance of meeting people where they are, rather than where we want them to be. We took this principle seriously, both in the abstract and the literal sense. We decided to open offices around the country to listen more closely to people’s needs and respond with the tools we have. We developed know-your-rights materials on topics we hadn’t previously addressed, like access to social services. Since then, we’ve opened three offices, built relationships with local organizations. We’ve held workshops and answered legal aid requests from all over the country. This work has meant finding ourselves at train stations at odd hours — as captured in my photos. The current moment is demanding a reckoning with how citizens feel about democracy. By electing “disrupters” and “strong men,” people are signaling their disillusionment with a system that no longer serves them — one in which their concerns go unheard, justice is difficult to access, and they are unsupported in times of need. If we want to protect democracy and strengthen human rights, we must acknowledge that the systems in place need urgent repair. I started a series about the lessons from the frontlines of human rights work in an increasingly authoritarian environment, find them on my profile.

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The true outcome of the October 2024 Elections is currently being decided at the Frelimo Central Committee in Matola. May 5, 2024, 15:30 The reason for this is simple: since the death of Afonso Dlhakama in 2018, the historic leader of RENAMO, the former rebel movement that became the country's second-largest political force since the democracy founding elections in 1994, the de facto elections have been in the selection of the Frelimo presidential candidate. This moment of tension and prolonged waiting until the winner is announced is reflected in Frelimo's internal elections. Since 2003, Mozambique has been a country with a dominant-party system, with Frelimo exercising dominance over the political system, even with Afonso Dhlakama still alive. Electoral fraud has always been used by the State, especially in the 1999 presidential elections, to protect Frelimo's rule. Therefore, it is not surprising that, after the General Peace Agreement that ended the civil war in 1992, two more Peace Agreements were necessary, in 2013 and 2018, to allow RENAMO to leave the bush - where it always went after the announcement of fraudulent election results – and participate in the scheduled elections. However, it was with the death of Afonso Dlhakama and the rise of Ossufo Momade as the current leader of RENAMO that Frelimo reduced the general elections in Mozambique to a mere formality. In the 2014 elections, RENAMO, under the leadership of Afonso Dhlakama, won in 5 provinces, including Niassa, Zambezia, Manica, Sofala, and Nampula. With the death of Afonso Dhlakama, RENAMO lost in all provinces in 2019, including Nampula, the province of the RENAMO president. In the recent municipal elections of 2023, RENAMO lost all its municipalities in Nampula. However, it won in Maputo and Matola, the capital and the industrial capital of the country, respectively. However, blatant electoral fraud prevented RENAMO from governing these municipalities. It may seem contradictory to assert that the true elections (scheduled for October 2024) are taking place today in the Frelimo Central Committee when RENAMO can win municipal elections in the capital and industrial capital of the country. However, since Ossufo Momade's rise, RENAMO has lost its fighting capacity to assert itself in this illegitimate democratic space, dominated, captured, and controlled by Frelimo. The understanding is that Frelimo will manipulate the election in its favor, while RENAMO, led by Ossufo Momade, will only lament that if they were in Europe, they would have won the elections. It is the dormant RENAMO that allows Frelimo to trivialize national elections, usurping citizens' right to vote and choose their leaders.

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ADVOCACY IN A CHANGING SPACE While civil society organizations have long served as the backbone of societal progress, they have increasingly come under the influence of long-standing state powers. For further insights on this issue, please refer to the document at https://lnkd.in/dkKS7dyB. Despite these challenges, there are strategies that can help to cooperate and reclaim space: 1. Media control has been on the rise, necessitating the exploration of new information channels as alternatives for civil society. 2. Embracing road activism: Just as technology can overwhelm those who do not adapt, active engagement is crucial to avoid being sidelined. 3. Building stronger relationships with communities and constituents to garner support from the general public. 4. Establishing clear frameworks for civil society organization operations to prevent arbitrary resource allocation and ensure transparency. 5. Advocating for the protection of rights to public assembly, association, and freedom of expression in alignment with international standards. If you have additional ideas or insights on advocacy in evolving spaces join us on https://lnkd.in/dYdCFEJp, we invite you to contribute https://lnkd.in/dfJiCRjp in this important conversation.

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Redefining expertise. One of the key challenges we at Urban Practice have encountered in participatory urban processes is the concept of expertise. What is expertise? How is it harnessed? Most importantly, who qualifies as an expert? This photo was taken at Lähiöfest 2019, during an event held at a library in Espoo. Together with the city of Espoo, we organized an open dialogue for the neighborhood, where residents could openly discuss both grievances and sources of pride. In the middle of the event, someone approached me and said, “See that lady over there? She’s the mother of the Rantaraitti concept in Espoo.” Anyone familiar with 'Rantaraittis'—the paths that wind along the waterfront through various Espoo neighborhoods—understands how influential this concept is for the city’s residents and visitors. It made me realize: this person is a true expert on Espoo. The way we define expertise shapes which voices are included and has a direct impact on the diversity—or lack thereof—within the process and outcomes. We at Urban Practice refer to this as the “class system” of expertise: rarely openly discussed but evident throughout the interaction process, from the tools used to the final reports. A typical approach assigns different forms of participation based on perceived levels of expertise, for ex. like this: 🎓 “Specialists” often work in academia, public institutions, or municipal offices, holding defined fields of expertise, such as sustainability, urban planning, or cultural history. These specialists are usually interviewed separately and quoted in reports. 🧢 A less defined form of expertise lies with local stakeholders and residents––private entrepreneurs, NGOs, informal groups, and individual citizens. This diverse group is often engaged similarly, for ex. through workshops or online questionnaires. While their input is summarized by facilitators, direct quotes are used in a more arbitrary and generalized manner. What are we missing with this definition of expertise? Are we overlooking essential perspectives? Do our chosen models of interaction limit our understanding of a problem? And finally, the hardest question: Is our participatory process, designed for inclusivity and diversity, truly inclusive and diverse? There’s no simple 1+2=3 solution for designing more pluralistic interactions. However, in our work, we’ve found that asking questions about expertise from the early stages of a project to its end (if there even is a clear end) is critical. A broader definition of expertise enables a more flexible, creative, and engaging process—one that may even alter the project’s trajectory. Expertise truly lives everywhere in a city. As interaction specialists, it’s our responsibility to design and implement processes that recognize all forms of expertise. It begins with respect and a commitment to plurality. Photo by Ramon Maronier/Urban Practice

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🌟 Calling all journalists! 😅"Who knew toilets and trash could be so trendy?" Local heroes from Catalonia to Kharkiv are turning #ZeroWaste into news headlines. Zero Waste Europe's latest report showcases municipalities' successful efforts to shut down incinerators, reduce methane emissions, implement menstruation-friendly toilets, and surpass national standards for separate collection. Why is this a must-read for journalists? 📰 Because: 🦗 Environmental chatter is global, but for cities tackling waste, it's crickets. These aren't just data dumps; they're more like reading a city's diary, full of hope and desires 😈 🔦 It's an opportunity to spotlight more human-interest stories from people who are redefining our environmental future. 🙋 Journalists have the narrative power to alter community views on environmental roles. As Jack McQuibban put it: "Their achievements are not just local successes but inspirations for communities worldwide." If journalists amplified local eco-successes stories, it could catalyse the change we hope to see. Curious to learn more? Check out the full report here: https://lnkd.in/ekkQ-67j Read the full press release on the topic now 👉 https://lnkd.in/eFbhuz7H

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Today is World Listening Day. World Listening Day is hosted every year by the World Listening Project, a nonprofit organisation that is “devoted to understanding the world and its natural environment, societies, and cultures through the practice of listening and field recording.” They explore acoustic ecology, a discipline that studies the relationship between humans and the natural world as mediated through sound. Listening is an art that requires undivided attention and patience from a person and benefits another who is in need of it. Listening is also beneficial for the listener, improving their listening skills and sharpening their awareness of their surroundings. As important as our sense of hearing is, we often don’t use it effectively, blocking out most sounds and voices, and not really listening to the message. https://lnkd.in/eq-twARe Here are a couple of relevant articles I've been quoted in 👂 https://lnkd.in/e9_WWwbT 👂 https://lnkd.in/eHQxR5HB 10Eighty #worldlisteningday #RaymondMurraySchafer #acousticecology #H20 #SoundsLostandFound #ListentoYou #ListeningtotheGround #TheUnquietEarth #activelistening #coaching #3levelsoflistening

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The game of change. Icebreakers - those, who change social norms. Changing gender stereotypes is a lengthy and complicated process. Icebreakers is also an important project of active Prevention at regional level at United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Ukraine. Creative formats, as this game, are a playful way to teach and engage local activists in GBV, DV theory of change. Tested on the ToT: the highest personal score for beliefs, networking and projects building✅

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🌍 Happening Now: Presentation of New Insights on Climate Change in Ukraine! 🌍 We are happy to share the findings of our latest sociological survey on climate change, conducted by the Ukrainian Climate Office (Capacities for Climate Action project) in collaboration with the Resource and Analysis Center “Society and Environment.” 📊 Key Findings: Awareness: Ukrainians are increasingly aware of climate change, with only 7% not viewing it as a significant issue. Temperature Rise: 47.8% report health impacts from rising temperatures, and 29.3% feel a greater need for indoor cooling. Personal Actions: Common actions include unplugging electrical appliances (57.4%), reducing disposable item use (44.1%), and choosing energy-efficient appliances (37.1%). Impact of War: The conflict affects climate attitudes, with actions like home insulation and solar panel installations linked to energy challenges during wartime. Public Support: An impressive 86% support increased public awareness of climate change. Generational Differences: Younger generations show less understanding and adoption of climate-friendly practices. 📅 Event Details: The ongoing online presentation and discussion event brings together representatives from governmental, non-governmental, and international organisations, as well as scientific and educational institutions, to delve deeper into these findings and their implications for climate policy in Ukraine. 🔗 Join the Discussion: Engage with us and explore how we can collectively address climate change challenges. Access the full report here: https://lnkd.in/dEQbsVaj Let's work together towards a sustainable future for Ukraine and beyond! 🌿 #ClimateChange #Ukraine #PublicOpinion #ClimateAction #SustainableFuture #Research #EnvironmentalAwareness #OnlineEvent

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Biodiversity is not only critical for a healthy ecosystem - it  also plays a role in effective water management! We, at HUF, observe the International Day for Biological Diversity to foster collaboration and highlight the importance it has for our very survival. We too seek collaboration to build action around water moving from security to resilience. Be #PartofthePlan to ensure thriving biodiversity for a resilient world. #BiodiversityDay ,  #JalAajAurKal , #HUF

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Night-time economy hits the frontpage of the newspapers in Sydney! The NEON Forum was a great opportunity to bring the different dimensions of night-time economy at the core of the local debate in Sydney, from economic and cultural vibrancy to city services open 24/7. In the interview I gave to The Daily Telegraph Australia I highlighted what European cities are doing to make mobility services, bars and restaurants operational after dark. That is creating not only integrated policies but better night experiences for residents and visitors, while promoting cities as world-class destinations for after dark activities as it's happening in Sydney. It's amazing to see how this kind of events is having an impact definitely stronger than similar initiatives in Europe, contributing to put night-time economy at the centre of the conversation and to promote innovative strategies such as the one just launched by 24-Hour Economy NSW and innovative initiatives such as the Data After Dark platform. Michael Rodrigues John Graham Night Time Industries Association (Australia) Night Time Industries Association Michael Kill Andreina Seijas 24HourNation Randall White URBACT Cities After Dark Nuno Almeida Nuno Gouveia

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