Corona Relief Fund: Together for a strong Civil Society!

In the Coro­na cri­sis, civ­il soci­ety is need­ed more than ever. At the same time, the exis­tence of many non-prof­it organ­i­sa­tions and asso­ci­a­tions is threat­ened by the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic: no income is gen­er­at­ed, costs con­tin­ue to run, sub­si­dies and dona­tions break down and very few organ­i­sa­tions have finan­cial reserves.

In response, PHI­NEO gAG has ini­ti­at­ed a Coro­na Relief Fund, which aims to secure the exis­tence of par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble and yet impact­ful Ger­man civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions and their ben­e­fi­cia­ries and com­mu­ni­ties sus­tain­ably through­out the cri­sis. Not only will this ensure their sur­vival, but they will also be able to pick up oper­a­tions again smooth­ly after the peak cri­sis phase is over.

There are cur­rent­ly approx­i­mate­ly 600.000 non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tions in Ger­many. These include human ser­vices orga­ni­za­tions that focus on peo­ple that are par­tic­u­lar­ly affect­ed by the Coro­na cri­sis, such as vul­ner­a­ble elder­ly, out of school chil­dren, out of school/​work youth, minori­ties (e.g. at risk refugees and refugee women), peo­ple with par­tic­u­lar phys­i­cal, men­tal or emo­tion­al con­di­tion and needs and others. 

A response to this cri­sis is now cru­cial for the sur­vival of a great num­ber of these non-prof­its and thus for the sup­port of their ben­e­fi­cia­ries. As a ​“fight­er for civ­il soci­ety”, PHI­NEO plays a very impor­tant role with the Fund. Our mis­sion is to rapid­ly and effi­cient­ly reach and help as many vul­ner­a­ble and endan­gered orga­ni­za­tions as pos­si­ble and in doing so, sup­port­ing and car­ing for their beneficiaries.

Pri­ma­ry Pop­u­la­tion Served

Ger­man based orga­ni­za­tions that 

• are rec­og­nized as non-prof­its and have a notice of exemption 
• are in acute finan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties and strug­gling for their exis­tence due to Covid-19
• are financed main­ly (>50%) by pri­vate sources (through grants from foun­da­tions, com­pa­nies or pri­vate indi­vid­u­als, as well as income from spe­cial-pur­pose and com­mer­cial operations)
• have achieved a prof­it on aver­age over the years 2017 to 2019 (total annu­al results greater than 0) and pro­vide evi­dence of impact-ori­ent­ed work as well as trans­par­ent reporting
• have already tak­en fur­ther sup­port mea­sures, such as short-time work­ing, the use of the assis­tance mea­sures of the Fed­er­al Min­istry for Eco­nom­ic Affairs and Ener­gy and bor­row­ing on ​“coro­na frame­work conditions”

Pref­er­ence is giv­en to small and medi­um-sized orga­ni­za­tions with an annu­al bud­get of up to 2.5 mil­lion EUR and up to 40 employees;

The Process

A dig­i­tal appli­ca­tion sys­tem ensures up-to-date, low-thresh­old and rapid access to the resources of our Coro­na Relief Fund. With the sup­port of experts PHI­NEO will review the appli­cants (due dili­gence) on an ongo­ing basis. The needs will be assessed quan­ti­ta­tive­ly and qual­i­ta­tive­ly using defined indi­ca­tors based on the appli­ca­tion cri­te­ria. Only after hav­ing sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly answered all our ques­tions will the orga­ni­za­tions be con­sid­ered for the funding. 

The Fund­ing

The fund­ing peri­od is 3 to 6 months (max. until 31.12.2020).

We sup­port each orga­ni­za­tion indi­vid­u­al­ly. There­fore, the amount of fund­ing varies as well. based on the indi­vid­ual fund­ing needs. We pay par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to ensur­ing that the resources applied for and the expect­ed effects are in rea­son­able proportion.

What results are expect­ed from the program?

Out­comes for non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tions we reach

• As a result of the fund­ing, the par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble orga­ni­za­tions will be able to con­tin­ue to car­ry out their activ­i­ties and hence con­tin­ue to sup­port and ser­vice their own tar­get group
• A more rapid non-bureau­crat­ic fund­ing will save many jobs that are now in dan­ger due to lack of finan­cial pow­er and reserve funds of the non-profits
• In the long term, the pro­gram will pro­vide those in need with a sup­port frame­work in the case of fur­ther chal­lenges result­ing from the Coro­na cri­sis, e.g. through an addi­tion­al funding 

Out­comes for the beneficiaries/​target group of the non-prof­it organizations

• Preser­va­tion of Ger­man civ­il soci­ety: Civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions are an inte­gral part of a well-func­tion­ing soci­ety and para­mount in all efforts towards greater social cohe­sion and pros­per­i­ty. With every fund­ing a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion will be strength­ened, which in turn will sup­port them to achieve their mis­sion and help indi­vid­u­als in need. Since effi­cien­cy in this con­text are cru­cial for the sur­vival of those orga­ni­za­tions, dig­i­tal­iz­ing the process of dis­sem­i­nat­ing funds is an essen­tial tool to mas­ter the challenges.
• Sup­port­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple by help­ing the non-prof­its to con­tin­ue to pro­vide their services.