Community Foundations Kicked off the Year with an Inspiring Gathering
For two days, our office was filled with representatives from community foundations. We learned together, and then the presentation of the 2025 plans marked the beginning of the organizations’ collaborative work for the year.
On the first day, March 7, representatives from the “younger” community foundations – Cegléd and Region Community Foundation, Csaba Community Foundation, ITT-HON-KA (Tatabánya), and MiskolcÉRT Community Foundation – filled our office. We learned together: we discussed the challenging, joyful, and mixed ways of executing projects, effective and positive communication with local communities, methods and importance of maintaining relationships with supporters, and also the difficult and effective ways of internal communication. Best practices and important information were exchanged, and the relationships between participants became stronger.
The next day, March 8, we held a tradition-setting event, this time with the participation of the “older” community foundations. Present were representatives from the Ferencváros Community Foundation, Pécs Community Foundation, Jóbuda Community Foundation, Kétker Community Foundation, Helyi Szálak Community Foundation, and the Eger Community Foundation, along with the “young” representatives who attended as guests and interested parties.
The participants introduced their annual plans for this year, explaining how life shaped their commitments for the year, how much money they plan to raise and distribute in their city or district to support civil initiatives. They talked about successes, failures, expectations, and goals. Once again, it became clear: Hungarian community foundations share many common driving forces, visions, causes, and difficulties, and they are happy to discuss these and eagerly learn from one another. The topic of joint action was also discussed, which we hope will soon become visible.
From our experience, the tradition-setting was successful: the presentation of ideas and the creation of joint plans marked an inspiring and promising start to the year.
