EUROIMPACT PLUS Erasmus Project

Project Title

EUROIMPACT PLUS

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

There are thousands of non-profit organisations actively working for youth in Europe relying on EU, national and local grants. Their ability to fulfil society needs depends increasingly on project-based funding. Nevertheless, while the livelihoods of many people depend on these organisations ability to deliver project results effectively and efficiently, project management (PM) is rarely identified as a strategic priority for many organisations.
At the same time, it is also evident that many EU funded projects have a little impact once they are completed. This means that organisations must think seriously about what works best and what works less well. There are many reasons why non-profits projects are less successful than they might otherwise:

-Not enough time is spent on preparation and reflection before starting work. Organisations rush into projects without good planning.
-There are problems with logistics: not enough money, not enough time, etc.
-The organisation has not developed the skills of project design and management, which require learning and practice.
-Organisations are inconsistent in the methods they use.

We have noticed weakness of essential knowledge, skills, methods, techniques, and tools used to plan and manage project work. Therefore, we have assessed the following weaknesses:

-Inadequate controlling of finance and resources.
-Shortcoming of human resources.
-Lack of communication among project team members at the time of developing work performance.
-High turnover of youth workers/volunteers.
-Project results are not reached in the most efficient way.

Our main objective with this project is to detect current organisations project management challenges and to provide youth workers all the necessary knowledge and PM tools to prove the benefits of PM methodology and depict situation of the awareness and usage of different PM methodologies and tools in non-profit sector. Youth workers will be able to plan, execute, monitor and control the project in a more consistent and reliable manner.

The direct beneficiary of the project will be 24 youth workers. These participants will participate to the two training event (TEs) (C1 & C2) but also take all the e-learning courses (IO1) from the project website and to participate to other local dissemination activities that will take place in each partner organisation overall the life of the project.

For the participants’ selection for the two TEs (C1 & C2) and other project activities the following criteria will be taken into consideration:

-Demonstration of social sensibilities
-Interested to learn and apply a PM methodology in their daily work of youth workers/volunteers.
-Experienced or interested in working with Erasmus+ programme.

Regarding the indirect beneficiary of the project we estimated that they will be 530.

The following methodology will be applied: Plan, Do, Check, Act. This aims to constantly monitor the project advancement and to ensure permanent quality improvement

We have planned to divide the project into 3 major phases. Each phase will include Project management and Implementation, transnational and virtual meetings and will be organize around the creation of IOs who will be delivered during the project. Impact measurement will be carried out after each activities.

-Stage one: Kick-off, research & survey (A2) (6 months)
-Second stage: Training event (C1), design, development and testing of e-learning courses (IO1) (8 months)
-Third stage (6 months): training event (C2), multiplier event (E1), final dissemination of project results through local activities and the creation of the “Impact plus guide” (IO2), closing.

The project will have direct, positive effects on the different participants as they will acquire more specialised knowledge on PM methodology for non-profits, transversal competences, perception of self-esteem and a positive sense of belonging to the wider community, and through the exchange of good practices for youth workers there will be concrete opportunities of intercultural contact as well as upskilling professional competences, adding comparative assessment and rating of the results, the perception of a professional growth and greater social recognition of the training, e-learning courses and educational mission by stakeholders.

Target groups and other stakeholders include International bodies, youth centres, non-profit organisation, willing to add non-formal activities to their formal curriculum; local and regional administrative bodies looking for a more efficient PM methodology for social projects in their community, and at large organisations interested in youth issues working with EU funds. These will benefit from the positive outcome achieved, in terms of their replicability and dissemination, improving their visibility and their impact within their own community.

The Project Management Team will constantly search for resources to attain objectiv

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 84379 Eur

Project Coordinator

OPPORTUNITY GLOBAL & Country: UK

Project Partners

• SDRUZHENIE ALTERNATIVI INTERNATIONAL
• ASOCIATIA GEYC
• ASOCIACION PROJUVEN