Dear friends, alumni and partners!

We haven’t seen for many months and with some of you for years and want to change it. On February 25, at 12:00 CET (at 13:00 Chisinau/Kyiv and 14:00 Minsk/Moscow time) we invite you to the first interactive SOIN meetup and the info-event of the program “Partnerships for the Goals!”. We are still not on Clubhouse, that’s why it will happen on Zoom. Join our Facebook-Event, get the link to the meetup and share your news and updates with a crowd of social entrepreneurs, innovators and experts from Belarus, Germany, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine! We’ll tell you about our lessons learned in 2020, upcoming events 2021, grants, jobs and opportunities, especially about "Partnerships for the Goals!" – our third accelerator with a brand new agenda advancing cooperation and developing international projects!

For those who forgot in the pandemic what we do and why our call may be interesting for you: since 2015, we have been running exchange and educational programs to support people involved in NGOs and independent initiatives tackling environmental issues, social challenges and human rights violations. We are mainly focusing on the tools of social entrepreneurship and exploring social innovation for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The last year presented us with unexpected challenges due to the Covid 19 pandemic: we had to cancel all of our offline events and to move our trainings into the virtual space. We know, you suffered from it too… After a summer with low numbers of Corona cases in Germany, our hopes to carry out offline events in autumn had been destroyed by the new exponential rise. Currently, Germany is facing rigorous restrictions since the end of October 2020 and is still in a shutdown until at least the 7th of March. Our team did not only have to move its work into the home office, but also transfer almost all of our activities into the virtual space. With the current developments (decrease of cases and vaccinations), we expect to be able to carry out exchange programs and study trips to Germany in the second half of this year. Until then we will continue to offer online trainings and from April on, smaller local events in hybrid and offline formats. Nevertheless, we have a positive outlook on the new year, because 2020 has shown us what we can achieve despite travel restrictions and social distancing!

Find out in our newsletter about our last years' activities and our upcoming plans – including a job ad as a project coordinator and call for applications SDG Accelerator "Partnerships for the Goals!" for international projects!


All the best!
Sergey Medvedev, project manager
Magdalena Patalong, project coordinator
and SOIN Team

With our SOIN program Innovate for Change 2020 we offered for the fourth time a number of capacity building trainings and microgrants for social entrepreneurs and civil society actors from Russian regions. The training measures and pitches were largely carried out via Zoom. 30 participants took part in the program, and five of them convinced the jury in the final pitches with their project ideas, receiving support for testing their project and new products. Initially we wanted to invite 12 participants to a study trip to Berlin, but due to travel restrictions we will focus on a smaller hybrid event in April (tba).

Within Sustainable Development Lab, our second SOIN program, we are dealing with research on the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals in Russia, Moldova and Belarus. In cooperation with the Open School for Sustainable Development, a comprehensive analysis of the situation with the SDGs in Russia was published in July 2020. Two further reports on Belarus and Moldova are in progress and will be presented in 2021. From July to September 2020, together with our partner Ukrainian Catholic University Lviv, we implemented the online training program "From Idea to Social Business within 90 Days" for 20 social entrepreneurs and innovators from all over Ukraine. The final pitches were streamed online and the three winners will participate in a study trip to Germany in autumn 2021. Don't miss the highlights of the pitches here!

In late 2020, we launched a brand new program C.L.A.N. (Civic Leadership Advocacy Network) for project managers, SocEnts, activists from Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia and Germany. All together we learn how to facilitate and moderate an online event and combat zoom fatigue, how to make your project equal, sustainable and accessible, how to write a project application and fill in the logframe, how to pitch, implement and submit an accounting report of your project properly. The program ends in March and we bring the C.L.A.N. members with you together to pitch our project ideas, to win a grant and to start a campaign in the Global Week to Act4SDGs in September 2021! More details on this on February 25 and in the Call for applications for the SDG Accelerator.

Are you working in a social business or NGO from Belarus, Germany, Moldova, Russia or Ukraine? Are you interested in creating innovative projects for global issues like climate change, waste, human rights or other? Are you looking for a partner in Germany or Eastern Europe? Then apply until March 4, 2021 for our SDG Accelerator to advance translocal cooperation and develop new partnerships for SDG 17!

From March until October 2021, we offer you:

• conferences, trainings, meetups with foreign stakeholders
• support in finding a partner organization in Germany or Eastern Europe
• support for your own online campaigns and regional events during the Global Week to Act4SDGs in September 2021
• help in writing a proposal concept to submit it for a joint grant (e.g. by German Federal Foreign Office) with a social business or NGO from Germany

The deadline for application is March 4, 2021.
For more information, don't miss our info event on February 25, 12:00 - 13:30 CET, with the team and alumni of SOIN network! Find out more on our Website.

Do you want to get to know the SOIN network and look for potential partners? Check out our mapping of SOIN partners and alumni from Germany, Russia and the Eastern Partnership countries here!

We are hiring! Apply now for the position as a regional coordinator for social innovation and sustainable development projects in the SOIN network with a focus on Russia. The position includes organization and implementation of regional meetings, educational and grant programs for social entrepreneurs and innovators as well as responsibility for the SOIN social networks. We offer the opportunity of working in a young, international team, a flexible working schedule and the possibility to work remotely from your own office or home, as well as a monthly payment of 1.000€ with the possibility of additional honoraria.

Are you experienced in working in foreign organizations or international projects? Do you have a profound knowledge of social entrepreneurship and/or sustainable development? Working with social media is not unknown territory for you and your proficiency in English and Russian is at least C1 level?

Then visit our website for more information and send us your resume and CV in Russian or English until March 8, 2021 to info@soin-network.org.