Call closed.

"Media for All” (Supporting Greater Media Independence in the Western Balkans) Project invites local and regional media in Serbia to apply for grants.

This regional Project implemented across Western Balkans is delivered by a consortium led by the British Council in partnership with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), Thomson Foundation and INTRAC (The International NGO Training and Research Centre), and is funded by the UK Government through the British Embassy in Serbia.

The Project is announcing two separate Calls for Applications for: 

  1. Business Development (BD) Grants, and 
  2. Engaged Citizen Reporting (ECR) Grants. 

Media outlets may apply to one or both of the Calls depending on their needs and level of capacity to implement the activities simultaneously.

Business Development Call aims to support local and regional independent media outlets in Serbia to become more financially sustainable by improving their business development and organisational capacities. To apply for Business development grant, applicants must submit their business idea and an indicative budget. Successful applicants will receive two-month Technical Assistance to develop their idea into business plan and budget. Condition to successful completion of the technical assistance phase, selected applicants will receive grants to implement their business plan. Proposed grant funds for implementation of business idea must fall between 10,000 GBP and 25,000 GBP. Duration of business plan implementation may not exceed 12 (twelve) months. The application form and documents for the Business Development Call are available at the bottom of this page. 

Engaged Citizen Reporting Call aims to support local and regional independent media outlets in Serbia to become more audience oriented by strengthening their relationship with their audience using the platform for citizen reporting. Grant recipients will be provided with a tool developed by the Project to engage with their audience and enable it to suggest topics, provide testimonials, documents and evidence with the aim to help media outlets involve their audience in story production, long before it is published. Grant recipients will be trained on how to use the platform and will be provided with editorial support and mentoring during project implementation on content production and promotion. Grant funds for content production requested under this Call must fall between 7,500 GBP and 15,000 GBP. Duration of the project is set to nine months in total, including the implementation of the ECR tool to the grantees’ websites and training on ECR. The application forms and documents for the Engaged Citizen Reporting Call are available for download at the bottom of this page.

Eligibility: Only media outlets registered in Serbian Business Registers Agency (SBRA) are eligible to apply. Media outlet, or legal entity owning the media outlet, must be registered in Serbia before 1 January 2018.

Selection: In addition to quality of proposal and capacity of applicant to implement it, the selection process for both Grant Schemes will take into consideration demonstrated commitment of the media outlet to adhere to the Law and uphold journalistic standards. Decisions of Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM) Council and Press Council’s Complaints Commission, as well as adjudicated court cases – particularly in regard of hate speech, discrimination, rights of minors and minorities, invasion of privacy, and presumption of innocence – will be considered.

The Project encourages media operating in remote geographic areas, coming from underserved communities, and/or established or managed by underrepresented groups (minority, youth and other) to apply.

Important information:

  • Applications must be completed in English language.
  • Deadline for applications for both Calls is 19 July 2020 at 24.00.
  • Time and date of the online information sessions will be announced in due time.
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