Welcome to our April 2025 Newsletter!
Every day, fresh attacks on democracy are arising in Europe and elsewhere. In the face of this grim news, it is easy to feel powerless.
Yet our grantee partners consistently show us that despite adversity, we have the power to protect and strengthen our fundamental democratic freedoms – especially if we exercise that power together. That means building alliances, sharing knowledge and ideas, and collaborating.
In a few days, on May 4th and 18th, Romanians will head to the polls to vote in their Presidential election.
Last November, an unknown candidate, Călin Georgescu, came from nowhere to win the country’s first-round Presidential election. Both the means of his victory – his campaign was conducted largely through TikTok, and he declared no campaign funding – and his ultranationalist, conspiracy theory-laden views, appeared to throw Romania’s democracy in peril. The election was later annulled after security services alleged Russian interference.
This month’s feature article recounts how our Romanian grantee partners, PressOne, Expert Forum (EFOR) and CeRe – whose work focuses on different pillars of democracy – helped safeguard it at a critical moment.
Yet the deep fissures in Romanian society – which last year’s election exposed – remain.
A recent analysis of Romania’s information ecosystem by the Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF) vividly describes ‘a clash of worldviews’: between versions of the truth presented in bite-size chunks on TikTok, and that offered by the media, which is facing an identity crisis. It also noted that in Romania, the best journalism is produced by ‘smaller players, who don’t receive state subsidies by the millions, and don’t serve a party agenda’.
The factual, non-partisan, courageous reporting of our grantee partner PressOne, and other outlets proves that. Their work – along with that of our other Romanian grantee partners, EFOR and CeRe – will again be vital in the weeks and months ahead.
Meanwhile, the wider challenges facing European social change and human rights funders are outlined in Ariadne’s 2025 Forecast, which found that “when faced with growing uncertainty, Ariadne members responded with renewed energy and a strengthened sense of community.”
It is this sense of community that will help foster the resilience and spark the civic energy we need to face the coming challenges.
In solidarity,
ELISA PETER
Director, Civitates
Before and after Romania’s Presidential election last November, grantee partners from our three sub-funds played essential roles in protecting democracy. Discover how Expert Forum of Romania (EFOR), CeRe (part of the Coalition NGOs for Citizens), PressOne worked together to mobilise civil society while documenting the online irregularities in and driving forces behind Călin Georgescu’s presidential campaign. Read full article here.
In the face of rising attacks on civil society organisations (CSOs) from Members of the European Parliament, on April 7 more than 570 civil society organisations from 40 countries joined forces to call on those in power to act now and ensure that civil society is adequately funded and enabled to share their crucial perspectives. A critical source of funding could be the 2028-2034 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF ), the EU’s multi-annual budget, as outlined in a recent paper published by Civil Society Europe (CSE).
Our Austrian grantee partner, LEFÖ, recently participated in the Vienna Pass Egal Election initiative for the first time. More than 610,000 Viennese do not have the right to vote in the 2025 local elections. The symbolic event, in which even people without Austrian citizenship could cast their vote, attracted a record turnout of almost 10,000 people.
Our grantee partner AI Forensics’ 2024 Annual Report documents the tangible impacts on platform behaviour and regulatory enforcement that the organisation’s data-driven investigations had last year.
Our grantee partner, Point de Contact, has been named as a trusted flagger by France’s Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority (ARCOM), the country’s digital services coordinator. This status will enable Point de Contact to report suspected illegal content to digital platforms effectively. This designation marks an important milestone in Point de Contact’s commitment to fighting cyber-violence and contributing to a safer digital space in accordance with the Digital Services Act’s (DSA’s) requirements.
Amnesty Austria’s campaign to make it mandatory for police officers to wear identification badges continues to gather pace in Austria, where police accountability for the use of force remains inadequate. Amnesty have developed a new petition strategy, and are producing a video series on the importance of identification during protests. See here.
The Portuguese narrative journalism digital magazine, and Civitates’ grantee, DIVERGENTE, is premiering its new podcast series, Arsonist Country, in May. he series explores why Portugal burns more than any European Union country. The leading cause is arson. Discover more about it here.
Our Steering Committee in Warsaw
At the end of March, Civitates held our Spring Steering Committee meeting in Warsaw. The meeting, hosted by the Batory and EFC Foundations, provided a unique opportunity to engage with Civitates’ Polish grantee partners and representatives of the Polish business and philanthropic community on issues related to the rise of autocracy, “discourse disorder”, experiments in re-democratisation and the rapidly shifting funding landscape for independent civil society organisations and public interest media in Europe. Foundation partners discussed options to provide a lifeline to embattled organisations, to stress-test our strategy against a set of different futures, and to streamline our governance in an effort to remain agile and effective in light of our growing number of foundation partners.
Ariadne’s Reconnect 2025
In early April Civitates attended the Ariadne 2025 Annual Reconnect conference in Zagreb, which was co-organised by Solidarna Foundation. Ariadne is the European peer-to-peer network of more than 600 funders and philanthropists who support social change and human rights. The convening’s themes were resilience and resistance in times of heightened uncertainty. Discussion centred around the impact of the recent cuts in US and EU national funding, and closing civic space for human rights activists in Europe, particularly in Eastern Europe and Caucasus. Discussions also explored options for more coordinated actions among funders, such as the development of a solidarity fund, a greater sharing of intelligence about grantees, and for moving money through in close civil spaces.
Marmalade Festival 2025
In April Civitates joined forces with Keseb, the nonpartisan, pro-democracy nonprofit organisation, at the Marmalade festival in Oxford (in partnership with the Skoll World Forum). Our Director Elisa Peter took part in an inspiring and thought-provoking discussion on the power of transnational cooperation in philanthropy, civil society and journalism, at a time when pro-democracy civil society organisations are facing global pressure. “Collaboration is not just a trend. It’s the only way to resist authoritarianism,” Peter said.
Perugia Festival 2025
Civitates attended the 19th International Journalism Festival between April 9-13 in Perugia. The largest annual media event in Europe drew journalists, students, scholars, media agencies, and journalism funders, among others. At more than 200 panel discussions and other events, key topics included how rising authoritarianism is fuelling attacks on press freedom around the world (and how the media can survive under growing constraints, while maintaining journalistic integrity); funding and sustainability; how journalists and media outlets should respond (and adapt to) AI.
30 / 04 – Happening today – Exploring political advertising data – who targets me?
(online webinar, 1.30pm, GMT)
Sam Jeffers, who founded and runs Who Targets Me, an organisation working to improve digital political ad transparency, will explore what data is available for political advertising campaigns, how to access it, and how to better it, and consider how this data can complement research. The webinar is organised by EU Disinfo Lab. Register here.
08 / 05 – Influence of foreign narratives on contemporary conflicts in France
(online webinar in French with automatically translated subtitles available, 1.30pm, GMT)
This session will dive into how foreign interference shapes public opinion and threatens democratic resilience, drawing on how the narratives–related to the war in Ukraine, the Hamas-Israel conflict, for instance – have impacted French society. The webinar is organised by EU Disinfo Lab. Register here.
09 / 05 – Europe Day
Celebrating Europe Day marks the anniversary of the historic 1950 Schuman Declaration, in which French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman laid out his idea for a new form of political cooperation in Europe.The European Cultural Foundation (ECF) is organising a campaign for a day off for Europeans. Learn more here.
15 / 05 – 2025: Climate disinfo reload
(online webinar, 1.30pm, GMT)
From AI-generated greenwashing to transatlantic denial campaigns, climate disinformation is mutating fast. Top experts from Global Witness and Ripple Research expose the most significant threats of 2025, and outline what can be done about them. The webinar is organised by EU Disinfo Lab. Register here.
29 / 05 – UK riots: how coordinated messaging mobilised rioters — lessons in detecting inauthentic behaviour
(online webinar, 1.30pm, GMT)
Kamila Koronska from the University of Amsterdam presents new research on how coordinated messaging on X and Facebook helped spark the 2024 UK riots, revealing how disinformation and hate speech fuelled unrest both online and offline. The webinar is organised by EU Disinfo Lab. Register here.
Calls:
- Calling all libraries and community leaders in Europe. The Europe Challenge, a programme that empowers libraries and their communities to tackle today’s most pressing social, digital, and climate challenges through collaboration across European borders, is offering funding of up to EUR 10,000 to implement a proposed project. More details here. Deadline: May 29.
- The European Network of Factcheckers has an open call supporting activities to increase fact-checking capacity and coverage across the EU. For more details, see here. Deadline: September 2.
- The EU’s Creative Europe Programme (CREA) has an open call for audiovisual producers to develop and produce strong projects with significant potential to circulate throughout Europe and beyond. More details here. Deadline: May 15.
- The Boosting Fact-checking Activities in Europe call for proposals supports projects from independent fact-checking organisations, which play a key role in limiting the adverse effects of disinformation on public discourse and democratic processes. More information here. Deadline: June 30.
- The Global Fact Check Fund, which supports fact-checking initiatives worldwide and is administered by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at the nonprofit Poynter Institute, has three rounds of funding in 2025. More details here.
- The International Visegrad Fund supports regional partnerships (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia) among NGOs and civil society organisations, public institutions and municipalities, private companies and nonprofit organizations, as well as education and research centers, that contribute to cooperation. More info here. Deadline: June 1.
- Journalismfund Europe offers grants “enabling activities and supporting services” for environmental investigative journalism. Application details and deadlines here.
- The New Media Incubator supports early-stage European media organisations in taking their news product to the next level. More details here. Deadline June 6.
Jobs:
- Senior Advocacy Manager – AI & Climate. AlgorithmWatch is seeking a Senior Advocacy Manager to lead impactful advocacy work addressing AI’s expansive environmental footprint. Application deadline: Monday, June 2. More details here.
We Recommend:
- The Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties) recently published its Rule of Law Report 2025. The report assesses how well governments respected the rule of law by documenting their efforts across six thematic areas, and reviewing the implementation of the European Commission’s recommendations from the prior year. Compiled by 43 rights groups in 21 EU countries, the report provides an important independent snapshot of the state of the rule of Law in the EU.
- The Journalism Value Project, which aims to advance knowledge of and debate around Europe’s independent media, has published a white paper based on the 18-month project, which combined survey research, podcast interviews, study visits, and multi-stakeholder dialogues. It outlines key recommendations aimed at strengthening independent public interest media in Europe. Read it here.
- The Council on Foundations, a US-based nonprofit membership association that serves as a guide for philanthropies as they advance the greater good, has released a public statement by 244 US-based donors on US government attacks on the civil society and philanthropic sectors: ‘As charitable giving institutions… we must have the freedom to direct our resources to a wide variety of important services, issues, and places… The health and safety of the American people, our nation’s economic stability, and the vibrancy of our democracy depend on it.” The complete statement is here.
- Our Austrian partner LEFÖ has contributed to the first edition of the annual Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) publication series. GAATW is an international network of 100 NGOs from across the world that advocates for the rights of migrants and trafficked persons. The report, Reframing Narratives: Anti-Trafficking from the ground up, provides unique perspectives on emerging issues in the anti-trafficking field.
