Application Guidelines

 

General information

 

Belarusian independent media is increasingly persecuted by the authorities following the 2020 Belarusian presidential elections, and this trend is unlikely to change in the coming years. It is high probability to foresee a long period of extreme repressive and an extremely closed environment in Belarus. Part of Belarusian independent media has fled to neighboring countries and working in exile, including Lithuania, Poland, and other Baltic countries. According to 2023 World Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders, Belarus Europe’s most dangerous country for journalists until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Belarusian regime continues its persecution of independent media and media art actors. Belarusian authorities are restricting the ability of citizens to access information and are using legislative means to shut down the final remaining independent media. Most Belarusian independent media outlets are now either operating from outside the county or have been forced to cease publishing, mainly financed by external grants, since 2020 lost advertising revenue.

Under these circumstances, independent Belarusian media - as entities and as individuals, who lost their jobs, working equipment, left the country, etc. - critically need financial, technical, and other capacity building support to ensure their vitality and to provide Belarusian people with a trustful information.

The Nordic Council of Ministers continues the Nordic Media Grants Programme for Belarus, launched in 2021, in aiming on strengthening the democracy and civil society in the country through support of independent media. Programme focuses on the creation of trustful media content on the actual life, also the identity culture and history of Belarus, addressing on human rights’ situation, such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembling, rule of law and other standards of democracy and civil society, debunking propaganda and fake news and supporting investigative journalism. Media in this programme is understood in a broader sense – hence not only comprising traditional newspapers, radio, television, social networks, but includes media arts, which is the form of human communication through film, photography, video, audio, computer/digital arts, and interactive media, as well as other, artistic activities. Also, this programme seeks to create synergies of independent media and media art players with culture sector individuals and organisations to support in raising public awareness of Belarussian culture. The broader scope of the programme provides additional flexibility in supporting different forms of initiatives of Belarusian media, especially of young ones.

Main target audience for the produced media content is the inhabitants of Belarus. Furthermore, there is a substantial Belarusian diaspora in the Baltics, Poland and other countries, looking for the trustworthy independent media content in the various mass media means. Due to the current situation in Belarus, where the government exercises unrestricted control over mainstream media and media arts, the need for the independent media content is constantly increasing. Therefore, there is a need to increase the volume and quality of locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally produced media products for Belarusian readers, in Belarusian and Russian languages, to promote a more diversified independent and trustful media landscape. The Nordic Media Grant Programme will contribute to supporting Belarusian media outlets, professional and start-up journalists, and media artists in provision of independent media and media art content for Belarus population.

A Nordic Media Grant Programme for Belarus would provide a long-term approach within strengthening the democratic development and support to civil society, and it would complement the support provided from bilateral (Nordic) donor countries. Further, within its framework and scope, it could be open for additional financial contributions from other donors who want to support the initiative - for example individual Nordic countries.

The total sum available for grants is approximately 300,000 Euro for 2024. The Nordic Media Grant Programme for Belarus is open, within its framework and scope, for contributions by other Nordic donors, for example, individual Nordic countries, in co-funding the granted initiatives.

In the first round of the Nordic Media Grants Programme for Belarus, 15 project applications for the amount of 211,000 Euro were approved out of 41 applications received from Belarusian independent media outlets, journalists and media artists based in Belarus and abroad. During the second stage, 15 applications were approved out of 56 received for a total grant amount of 255,000 Euro

Objective and goals

The overall goal of the Programme is to support Belarusian independent journalism and media arts initiatives and facilitate the production of high-quality, trustworthy and diverse content for Belarusian people on the developments in the country. The programme would promote the provision of objective information to the people of Belarus as a counterweight to the propaganda spread by the current Belarusian and Russian regimes.

The objectives of the Program:

1.      To support Belarusian independent media outlets, journalists, and media arts through provision of grants.

2.      To support capacity building of the media players and media artists.

3.      To contribute to the provision of trustful information to Belarusian society and to inform Belarusians about the Nordic countries’ societal values and policies towards Belarus.

4.      To support Belarusian culture related to the media arts.

 

Eligible applicants and activities

Application can be submitted by:

  • Belarusian independent media outlets.

  • Belarusian journalists.

  • Belarusian creators of visual / artistic / interdisciplinary media content.

  • Non-Belarusian media outlets, which employ or contract Belarusian journalists, and produce content on situation in Belarus.

The editorial offices of media outlets and media art companies should be registered or legally operating in Belarus or any other countries. Non-Belarusian media outlets and media art entities should employ or collaborate upon the service contract with the Belarusian journalists to be eligible to apply for the grant. The free-lancers will have to provide the official document for status of a self-employed person or any other legal documents validating the journalistic or media artist activities in the relevant country.

The main outputs expected from a supported project is the high-quality print, broadcasted or online media and creative media and media art products addressing the Belarusian audiences in Belarus and abroad. Content can be produced in Belarusian and Russian.

All the media and media arts products created within the projects can be released in local, national, or regional media in Belarus or in international media, which is dispersed and consumed via traditional or digital media. Freelance journalists need to have or launch their own media tool or to document the access to any independent mass media tool to qualify for a grant. The start-up young journalists and media artists are highly encouraged to apply.

All funded media and media arts products must be freely accessible to a national or global online audience without any access barriers such as paid access or registration. The grant scheme will concentrate mainly on production of media and media arts content, also, it will support in some extent the enhancement of technical and human capacities of media and media art professionals and start-ups, through trainings, study trips, purchase of equipment, rent of premises, etc.

 

Funding principles

The following expenses are eligible under four key budget categories and their subcategories:

1.      Media and media arts production costs:

1.1. Salary for production of media and media arts products (remuneration to employed journalists, translators, editors, designers, the freelance journalists acting as project applicants, etc.).

1.2. External services for production of media and media arts products (payment for provision of outsourced services obtained by contract from an outside supplier, e.g., article production, translation, editing, production of video or audio material, etc.).

2.      Travel and accommodation costs:

2.1. International travel (economy flight, train and bus tickets, fuel, insurance).

2.2. Local travel (economy public transport tickets, car rent, fuel, etc.).

2.3. Per diem for international travel (per diems cover meals costs).

2.4. Accommodation (economy hotels, etc.).

3.      Capacity building costs:

3.1 Training fee (to the trainers and coaches).

4.      Project management costs:

4.1 Project manager’s remuneration (salary or fee) – maximum 10% of the grant (ineligible for freelance journalists acting as project applicants).

4.2 Other costs (purchase or rent of equipment, distribution, and promotion of project outputs, etc.) – maximum 25% of the grant.

5.      Indirect costs (Overheads) (costs related to the administration of the project, such as office supplies, accounting, communication costs, etc.) – maximum 7% of the grant.

The maximum duration of projects – 12 months.

The minimum grant is 5.000 EUR, and the maximum – 30.000 EUR.

All the expenses shall be well justified and relevant to the project activities. The budget in Application shall be detailed, e.g., clearly indicating the number of units and costs per unit.

 

Application and implementation process

The Nordic Council of Ministers Office (NCM) in Lithuania will be in charge of management and monitoring of the Nordic Media Grant programme for Belarus. The NCM in Lithuania will form Evaluation Committee (EC) which will make decisions on selection and funding of successful projects.

The deadline for Applications is 25 February 2024 (latest at 23.59 Lithuanian time). Applications should be signed by the official representative of the Applicant and submitted to mediagrantsbelarus@norden.lt or mediagrantsbelarus@proton.me in two formats – a scanned document in a pdf format and in a Word format. Any Application submitted after this deadline will be rejected. It is the sole responsibility of the Applicant to ensure that the Application is prepared in accordance with these Guidelines and is submitted within the deadlines given.

The Application must follow the template of the provided Application Form and take note of the instructions given there. Applicants are encouraged to make themselves familiar with the Application Form before they start drafting the Application.

All submitted and registered applications will be pre-screened and evaluated according to their correspondence to the selection criteria and cross-cutting themes.

The projects are encouraged to address or relate to the following cross-cutting themes: sustainable development goals (human and social aspects, e.g., democracy, civil society, humans’ rights), gender and youth. Also, the media, media arts and culture products produced within the project must comply with the core principles of good journalism: truth and accuracy, independence, fairness and impartiality, humanity, and accountability. The application shall include description of the relevancy of the project to the cross-cutting themes and the principles of good journalism. The projects that apply new technical solutions and create innovative media platforms, with the aim to get a better outreach to younger audiences, are encouraged to apply. This could also include elements of support for the creation of common platforms, where media outlets, journalists and media artist operating in different countries will have possibilities to cooperate and meet to strengthen networking and common activities. Project may as well facilitate cooperation between different media and media art actors in one specific country, as well as between actors Belarus and in other countries and.

The Application shall clearly specify the project outputs, e.g., number of articles published, number of videos produced and broadcasted, number of radio reportages issued, number of posts on social media posted, size of audience reached, number of the new journalists/editors engaged, new cooperation with other media outlets established, etc.

Applications shall provide clear evidence of project sustainability, covering the further actions of the applicant in continuing project activities, which will be assessed during evaluation stage.

Applications can include co-funding by the Applicant as its own input in launching and running the project. Proposals with justified co-funding by the Applicant or merged funding by the third party will be viewed favorably during the selection process and are encouraged. Co-funding may be given as a monetary or in-kind contribution, either by the Applicant or through a third party (e.g., organisation, partner, donor, authority) towards the project. To be considered as co-funding the contribution needs to be directly linked to the budgetary framework provided and be an integral part of the Application.

A balance between big media players and start-ups will be ensured during project selection.

Selection criteria:

  • Relevance of the project and justification of the project need.

  • Quality of the project design and implementation.

  • Impact the project may have on the Belarusian society.

  • Cost-efficiency (budget adequacy to the project outputs, funding-duration ratio, share of co-funding).

  • Innovative media tools for outreach of the younger audience.

  • Sustainability of the project.

  • Correspondence to the programme cross-cutting themes.

  • Clear outline for audience outreach (what are the target audiences?)

  • Nordic media, media arts and culture partnership (advantageous criteria).

Granting and implementation of the selected projects

The successful Applicants will be notified by e-mail by the end of March 2024. The successful Applicants will sign a Grant Agreement with the Nordic Council of Ministers Office in Lithuania. Before signing the Grant Agreement, the Applicant may choose the grant payment order from two options: 1) 55+45% or 2) 40+45+15%, where:

  • the first payment is paid as advance payment after signing the Grant Agreement.

  • the interim payment (in the second option, only) is paid as advance payment after approval of the Interim Report.

  • the last payment is paid as compensation of the expenses paid within the project timeframe after approval of the Final Report.

Implementation of the approved project may start after signed Grant Agreement. All projects must be finished not later than 31 March 2025.

The grant shall be used according to the project budget agreed in the Grant Agreement. Any shifting of up to 10% of grants between the budget lines within the same budget category are allowed without approval of the Nordic Council of Ministers Office in Lithuania. The shifting of more than 10% from one budget line to another within the same budget category should be approved by the NCM office in Lithuania by e-mail. The key project changes, such as reallocation of budget between the budget categories, changing the duration, location, activities, outputs of the project or any other key project elements, should be agreed in the Amendment to the Grant Agreement.

The grantee is obliged to pay all the taxes according to the national legislation of the relevant country. All the project expenses (including co-funding) should be paid within the project timeframe: not earlier than the first day and not later than the last day of the project. Only economy class tickets and hotels are eligible to be paid from the grant for travel and accommodation expenses. The per diems are eligible for international travel only and should be calculated upon the fixed rates in the actual framework of EC-funded external aid.

The justification of the co-funding (in line with the project budget) and overheads (7%) is not mandatory but encouraged in the final report.

An Interim Report might be foreseen in the Grant Agreements for monitoring purposes. The Interim Report will require to submit a short narrative report on project activities and financial report for advance payment used. The justification of project expenditures at the interim stage can be required to be provided in certain cases. The interim advance payment (in case of the second payment order option) is made after approval of the Interim Report.

A Final Report including project narrative and financial parts must be submitted to the NCM Office in Lithuania not later than one month after the end of the project. The narrative part of the Final Report shall describe the project activities implemented and project outputs and outcomes achieved together with documentation of the produced and published media products. A list of the project outputs produced should be provided together with active links to the media products to reach them on-line (if relevant). In the case of producing printed media outputs, digital copies or photocopies of the printed media products should be submitted with the Final Report. No paper copies are required.

Various audience and accessibility metrics shall be provided using data tools such as Google Analytics, Facebook Ads reports etc.

The financial part of the Final Report (in Excel spreadsheet) shall specify all the project expenses incurred in line with the project budget. The expenses shall be justified with the copies of the financial documents such as digital copies of the signed service contracts, signed invoices, salary calculation tables (indicating taxes paid), timesheets, travel tickets, boarding passes, bank payment orders, bank statements, etc. The expenses on fuel shall be justified in specifying the project related travel goal and destination, date, distance in kilometers, vehicle, etc. The project currency is Euro.

All project documentation (application, corresponding, reports) must be in English.

 

Management and Information

The management and monitoring of the programme will be carried out by the NCM Office in Lithuania.

All information about the programme is also available on www.norden.lt and http://www.nordicmediagrants.org. All questions related to the program should be addressed to mediagrantsbelarus@norden.lt or mediagrantsbelarus@proton.me