Annual Report 2001

2001 was a turning point in the life of our foundation. For a long time we have been aware of the coming withdrawal of the private American foundations, our main supporters, from Hungary. We enjoyed their generous and continuous trust from the very beginning in the form of core grants. We were prepared to meet the challenges of the change. This meant the search for European and Hungarian resources, generating own income, so that we could fulfill our mission, to support the emerging civil society. We were looking for resources to strengthen the income generating activities of the Roma, based on local initiatives. At the same time it is clear that some of our old grantees have grown, and they are able to accomplish even larger programs than ours. Based on this experience we realized that direct grant making is not the only way to provide support. Development work has gained more emphasis than before. The change can be seen very well in the program structure of 2001. Beyond keeping grant making as a focus, we organize more and more training courses or programs including training as a result of which the supported communities are able to find their own resources. Therefore our multilevel support system makes it possible to fulfill our mission in cooperation with other donors.