Tips for the submission by János Czafrangó

Every year, socially innovative projects that respond to social challenges with new solutions from the Central and Eastern European region can be submitted to SozialMarie. All information about the current call for proposals can be found here: www.sozialmarie.org/en/call.

"SozialMarie is a prize for successfully implemented, socially innovative projects." 

What does this definition mean? János Czafrangó, a SozialMarie patron in Hungary, helps with some tips on submission:

Since SozialMarie is a prize, it involves a kind of competition, and if it involves a competition, then the "submission" is actually an application. An analogy of competitors who register for a sports competition works well with SozialMarie in the sense that the prerequisite for both is good performance, and in the case of SozialMarie, only innovations that have already been realized can participate in the competition.

Those who decide to enter the competition have already made their first self-assessment and decided that their programme or project is so strong that it will stand up to competition!

And how can this strength be tested in advance? During the preparatory workshops in Budapest there was an exercise for pairs, where the participants had to interview each other about the other‘s project and then briefly present it. Great results were achieved and this is proof that a good "foreign" eye and ear can be very useful! My advice is not to start the submission by filling out the submission form, but to ask other people who know your project first:

Why and to what extent do they consider your project innovative and what would they highlight if they had the opportunity to present it in a few sentences? You can easily check in advance if you meet the Criteria for Social Innovation in the call for proposals by looking at a total of 16 (!) SozialMarie criteria, divided into four groups. 

Before you start filling out the form, you should also consider what makes your programme different from similar programmes and why you think it is special.  You should also determine in advance how you can demonstrate that your programme has achieved the intended social impacts.  

And remember: It is not organisations but projects and programmes that compete with each other, so the presentation should also focus on that! However, if you want to provide a very short outline of your organisation, make use of the fact that you (or your predecessors) have already worked hard on the foundation charter to present it in short sentences, which you can also use in your presentation :-)

I wish you a good application process!

With kind regards,
János Czafrangó
SozialMarie patron 2019 in Hungary