We would like to invite you to participate in the pre-conference training on June 30, 2005 in Helia Hotel, Budapest. These training sessions are to be offered primarily to members of the Soros Foundations who are to be involved in spinning off their education programs and to representatives of the already established NGOs and policy centers that are members or partners of the Soros Network. The three parallel trainings are designed to raise leaders' organizational capacity to manage successfully the operation of NGOs as well as to be an effective advocate for necessary changes in the education sector.

If you would like to participate in the training please indicate this on the conference registration form. Each training session will accommodate up to 25 participants. Registration for the training will be done on a "first come first served" basis. The registration for the training will be closed after each session reaches 25 participants. The training will commence at 9:30am on June 30, 2005 and finish at 5pm.

The focus of this workshop is on laying the groundwork for an organizational sustainability plan including financial sustainability. Participants will be introduced to self-financing as part of an overall sustainability strategy and determine the appropriate revenue mix given their circumstances. This workshop will provide an introduction to self-financing; allow participants to define goals for self-financing; and assess their organizational readiness for self-financing. Case studies and regional examples will be shared. This workshop will provide tools and exercises to assist organizations in assessing the viability of selected strategies. The workshop will cover the integration of self-financing goals and strategy into the overall sustainability plan.

The focus of this workshop will be on resource generation and fundraising - diversification, analysis and development of strategies for attracting a range of funding sources. Participants will learn about a range of income generation options and how to select a target mix that is appropriate for their organizational goals. The workshop will focus on effective fundraising strategies and techniques, including case studies and hands-on exercises. It will consider in particular two of the most common strategies - grant writing and individual donor development. Participants will receive a series of tools and exercises to assist them in realizing their fundraising goals.

Both of these workshops will be conduced by Nonprofit Enterprise and Self-sustainability Team (NESsT) http://www.nesst.org/vision_problem.asp from Budapest, Hungary. NESsT utilizes an interactive and practical methodology that seeks to build on participants' experiences and understanding, and to build their capacity in the long run. NESsT provides a set of tools and practices for organizations to implement in their own context, thus developing the capability of organizations to address both short term and long term issues.

The focus of this workshop will be on developing successful strategies to be an effective advocate for change in the education sector. It will include:

• Clarifying basic terms in diverse contexts:
• Public interest in education; empowerment; stakeholders; advocacy/ lobbying/ regulatory change; coalition, cooperative and confrontational approaches.
• Creating strategy for change:
• Different forms of citizen mobilization; strategy elaboration; activities in public awareness, regulatory change and information campaigns.
• Public policy issues: analysis, debates and changes:
• Public participation in policy debates (use of roundtables, deliberation forums, citizen task forces, focus groups, Delphi method, etc.); Albert.s social barometer theory.
• Constituency development and mobilization.
• Strategies for working with educational and parents unions, schools, local administration, religious organizations, political groups, public and media.
• Coalition building:
• Building coalitions at national level; identifying and attracting potential partners; communication, leadership, problem solving, and public relations issues.

The training will be offered by Partners for Democratic Change, Slovakian NGO, (http://www.partnersglobal.org/centers/centers_slovakia.html) who has been consultants to the country's NGO, local government, business, academic, and ethnic minority communities since 1991.