40 community representatives learned to write grants will be able to raise up to UAH 1 million for their ideas

40 representatives of local self-government who have taken a training course in project management created by MHP and the MHP-Gromadi Charitable Foundation have learned how to draw up high-quality grant applications and attract additional funds to communities. Apart from the skills acquired, community representatives will be able to implement their ideas via a new grant competition.

The educational program for community representatives — School of Leaders “My community and MHP: Growing Together” — which is implemented by MHP and the MHP-Gromadi Charitable Foundation in cooperation with Mariupol State University — gathered community leaders, council secretaries, village heads, and deputies on one platform. Participants learned efficient teamwork methods, designed grant projects, and improved their professional skills.

The MHP Culinary Center became the networking platform, where offline and online training were held in June. The experts explained that personal presenting skills affect the community’s investment opportunities. They also trained methods to effectively conduct a collective discussion, build a dialogue, and work in a team, as well as ways to create projects of interest to investors.

The teaching staff of Mariupol State University working in management, business, strategizing, public administration, and psychology fields joined the School of Leaders. In particular, Tetiana Marena, Larysa Shaulska, and Anastasia Trofymenko joined the training program development. Andriy Stoyka, Anna Chechel, and Olha Puchyna told the participants about fundraising, social entrepreneurship, and managing stress resistance. Olha Mashtaler, a business coach, helped community heads improve their self-presentation, communication, and public speaking skills.

“Serving the community is one of the important missions of Mariupol University, given its displacement. Our educational institution and the MHP-Gromadi Foundation jointly implemented the School of Leaders to help community heads with their professional development. Such fruitful joint work makes you realize the extent to which the communities need and expect support. We will continue our cooperation with MHP in this field. We are currently developing a program for the next stage of the School of Leaders, which will involve mentoring participants in the process of community development project preparation,” said Tetiana Marena, Vice-Rector for Scientific and Pedagogical Work, Mariupol State University.

An important training component was the practical part, where representatives of local self-governments developed projects to be implemented in their communities.

“Quality cooperation between business and authorities is an effective way for community development. A sustainable and transparent business is interested in community development, the increase in the population’s well-being, and professional and proactive government. Therefore, it is important to constantly improve the competencies of people who do and will introduce significant changes in their communities, and the efficiency of those fields of activity they are currently responsible for. Therefore, MHP, in cooperation with the MHP-Gromadi Charitable Foundation and Mariupol State University, organized training for community representatives to help them develop skills to attract additional resources from various sources and thus stimulate the social and economic development of their communities.” Pavlo Moroz, Director of the Corporate Social Responsibility Department.

Upon completion of the first training stage, the Charitable Foundation announced a grant competition for participants of the School of Leaders. Thus, communities will be able to attract funding and implement the necessary projects. Within the competition, participants will be able to raise UAH 500,000 to UAH 1,000,000 for their projects. The total competition budget is UAH 5,000,000. The project should be aimed at veteran reintegration, energy efficiency, or youth potential development.

Applications are accepted from August 1 to September 15. When drawing up the application, participants will get expert support from program mentors. The winners will be announced on November 10.

Also, representatives of the local self-government received training completion certificates and visited the chefs of the MHP Culinary Center, Roman Makovetskyy and Yurii Hrytsai.