Call for Applications: Nordic Media Grants Programme – Belarus

The goal of the Nordic Media Grants Programme for Belarus 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.

Objectives

• To support Belarusian independent media outlets, journalists, and media arts through provision of grants.
• To support capacity building of the media players and media artists.
• 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.
• To support Belarusian culture related to the media arts.

Funding Information

• The size of a grant can range from 5.000 EUR to maximum of 30.000 EUR. The total sum available for grants is approximately 300.000 EUR.

Funding Principles

• Media and media arts production costs:
  • Salary for production of media and media arts products (remuneration to employed journalists, translators, editors, designers, the freelance journalists acting as project applicants, etc.).
  • 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.).
• Travel and accommodation costs:
  • International travel (economy flight, train and bus tickets, fuel, insurance).
  • Local travel (economy public transport tickets, car rent, fuel, etc.).
  • Per diem for international travel (per diems cover meals costs).
  • Accommodation (economy hotels, etc.).
• Capacity building costs:
  • Training fee (to the trainers and coaches).
• Project management costs:
  • Project manager’s remuneration (salary or fee) – maximum 10% of the grant (ineligible for freelance journalists acting as project applicants).
  • Other costs (purchase or rent of equipment, distribution, and promotion of project outputs, etc.) – maximum 25% of the grant.
  • 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.

Eligibility Criteria

• 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.

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 program cross-cutting themes.
• Clear outline for audience outreach (what are the target audiences?).
• Nordic media, media arts and culture partnership (advantageous criteria).

For more information, visit Nordic Council of Ministers.