Results of the Masterclass Held at the Local Communities Forum in Sosnovy Bor

The festival was attended by a total of 4.5 thousand people, which is almost half of all residents of the city of Volosovo. The main guests are young people and representatives of families with children.

“Social networks are a very effective promotion channel. Unlike traditional media, where editors publish information in their own way, in social networks you can publish texts in your own format and communicate directly with the target audience, answer their questions about your event, and work with reviews,” Oksana Prokopova explained. She emphasized that she used only free promotion tools on social networks: ads in her group, thematic communities and groups dedicated to the Volosovsky district. “A separate group dedicated to the festival was created, and every day we published information about the upcoming holiday there. When promoting any project, it is important that the content is original, the phrases are concise and understandable to the reader. Quality is more important than quantity: it is better to write one good interesting post than to clog the feed with an abundance of posts “for show”. We did not limit the topics of announcements to the festival - we wrote about future participants and master classes, about the life of the area, even on related topics that may be of interest to the residents of Volosovo, ”said the smm manager.

The organizer of the City Picnic, Yuri Smetanin, said that in total, the holiday was prepared for 4 months. “When working on a large scale, it is very important that there is a separate person in the team responsible for social networks. The organizer has many other tasks, and he cannot manage to add content every day, promptly answer questions from readers and work with reviews.”

The next master class on the theme "Affordable IT tools for the non-profit sector" was held by the director of the company "Appomart" Vladimir Cherny. The expert gave the main recommendation to NGOs when creating a website: to use free services as much as possible that allow you to visualize the mission of the organization, use high-quality photographs, check the quality and spelling of texts, design websites on free platforms (Tilda, Appomart), use the services of freelancers in various areas (they can be find on special exchanges) and write them clear terms of reference.

Alexey Kravchenko, a member of the Civic Chamber of the Leningrad Region, spoke positively about Appomart as a socially responsible campaign. “Today, NGOs lack clear instructions and knowledge when creating websites, and receiving structured recommendations with links and practices at a master class helps to overcome the barrier that prevents NGOs from creating a quality resource that can attract the attention of the target audience on their own without financial injections.”

“Within the framework of the Forum, it was decided to continue the practice of holding master classes together with Appomart experts in other cities of the Leningrad region,” Vladimir Cherny emphasized.

Within the framework of the Forum, a discussion platform was held with a discussion of how businesses and NGOs can create joint projects. The moderator of the section - the head of the Reception of the Public Council of the State Corporation "Rosatom", a member of the Public Chamber of the Leningrad Region Sergey Averyanov gave an example of the project "I"m planning a budget", which has been implemented in the Sosnovoborsk urban district for several years. “As part of this program, active representatives of the non-profit sector and ordinary residents of Sosnovy Bor can put forward their ideas for social projects that can benefit our district. A theme is created for each initiative, and residents can discuss it, supplement it, and give their recommendations. Funds from the city budget have been allocated for the implementation of the best of these projects. However, the problem is that many project initiators cannot or do not know how to implement them. Therefore, most of the projects remain at the stage of discussion,” said Averyanov. He is sure that for productive work on social projects, it is important to create a common platform for NGOs and businesses, where representatives of these areas can plan joint work on mutually beneficial terms.

The discussion smoothly turned into a workshop dedicated to crowdfunding projects. Alexey Kravchenko, Director of the Center for Support of Public Initiatives, spoke about the crowd platform “The Domain of Kindness”. The platform allows NGO representatives to raise money for social projects that are planned to be implemented in the Leningrad Region. “This is a modern model of attracting extrabudgetary funds for charity. There are more than 500 crowdfunding sites in Europe. At the same time, this technology is practically not used in Russia, although it is crowdfunding that is well suited for local projects with small budgets. Small amounts are much easier and faster to raise through public funding than through grant competitions.”

Fundraising for the New Year’s holiday for disabled children in Vsevolozhsk, the Smoothie family club (an alternative to kindergarten), the Love Bench in the city of Kommunar, the Robot Theater in Gatchina, and the improvement of Sorvali Park have already been launched on the Domain of Kindness platform. in Vyborg.

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“Community Forums” are open business forums for interaction between the local community. They are attended by employees and volunteers of NGOs, representatives of initiative groups, village elders and journalists, entrepreneurs and representatives of authorities. In 2017, Forums have already been held in Vsevolozhsk, Gatchina and Sosnovy Bor, and a Forum in Tikhvin is planned for November 23. The series will be closed by the final Forum of Local Communities, which will be held on December 9 in St. Petersburg.