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Getting prepared for your first CERV funding application - A 6-step approach

The EU’s Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (CERV) supports projects that promote a more inclusive, democratic society, and enhance citizen participation across the EU – offering funding to a wide range of actors such as civil society organisations and public authorities.

If your organisation is considering applying for the first time for a CERV grant, use this step-by-step guidance to prepare yourself for writing a compelling project proposal.

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Getting on the right track with your CERV funding application

The EU Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (CERV) offers project funding opportunities for a wide variety of organisations that aim to create a more inclusive, equal, and democratic society in the EU. Applying for a CERV grant can be challenging due to multifaceted application requirements, especially for (smaller) organisations with limited resources, and when applying for the first time. A well-structured approach when preparing your application will save you quite some hassle. Follow the below 6 steps to start off on the right foot.

This article explains the application aspects, for more information about the existing thematic funding areas within CERV you may also like to read my previous article about the EU CERV programme.

Your step-by-step preparation when applying for project funding from the EU CERV Programme

Step 1: Meeting essential Call requirements

Before you start writing your application, check the documents in the EU Funding & Tenders Portal for the Call for Proposals you would like to apply for. You will need to analyse the text of the Call itself very thoroughly to determine if your project aligns with the objectives of the EU CERV programme. The CERV programme supports projects that promote democracy, EU values, equality, rights and active citizenship. Likewise, applicants must ensure their project fits within the specific, further defined areas indicated in the concrete Call.

Your organisation itself needs to be eligible, based on the type of entity (non-profit, public authority, etc.) and the country of registration. Only organisations from EU Member States and certain associated programme countries are eligible for CERV funding. If your organisation has never applied for EU funding through the EU Funding & Tenders Portal before, you will still need to register your organisation and create an account on the Funding and Tenders Portal in order to be able to proceed.

Step 2: Relevance and impact of your project

You need to ask yourself what the relevance of our project in relation to the CERV programme’s goals are. The EU looks for projects that bring innovative solutions to societal problems. Your proposal must clearly demonstrate how the project contributes to CERV’s objectives, such as for example fighting discrimination, promoting gender equality and protecting EU citizens’ rights. How does your project introduce new approaches, methodologies or tools that can contribute to CERV’s and in particular the Call’s objectives?

Moreover, determine what impact your project will have. Applicant organisations need to describe the expected outcomes, both short-term and long-term. How will the project benefit the target groups? How does it address pressing social issues or challenges identified at EU level? Does the project demonstrate an European added value? The EU is seeking to fund projects which generate value beyond national or regional interests and benefit several EU Member States.

Step 3: Capacity and partnerships

Most CERV Calls for Proposals require you to form an international consortium to implement the project. A coordinator will have to be appointed who then applies on behalf of the consortium. The EU requires that all participating organisation have a sufficient operational capacity, such as related experience, skills and personnel to carry out the project successfully.

Strong partnerships are important. You need suitable partners from other eligible countries who are reliable and are committed to contribute to the project effectively.

Step 4: Budget and co-financing

When you are preparing your proposal, you will need to establish a well-structured and realistic budget in view of the expected costs, and demonstrate an efficient use of resources. A inadequate budget (in relation to the planned activities and staff resources) can harm the success of your application or cause issues during project implementation.

CERV funding usually requires co-financing. This means the EU funds a certain percentage of the project (often up to 80%), and the applicant organisation(s) must secure the remaining amount through own resources or further donors.

Step 5: Sustainability of your project

The EU values projects that have long-lasting effects, i.e. beyond the end of the funding. Applicant organisations should show how they will ensure the project’s sustainability, for example through continued funding from other sources, the integration into ongoing activities or policy influence.

Moreover, organisations which receive funding must already indicate in their application how they plan to share the outcomes, best practices and lessons learned from the project with relevant stakeholders at the local, national and EU levels, to enable a wider positive impact of the project later-on.

Step 6: Work plan, monitoring and evaluation of the project

In your application, you break down the project into Work Packages including project activities and phases, and determine realistic and achievable milestones which mark the completion of key activities.

In this context, you will also need to plan how to measure the success of your project. You will need to draw up a clear plan for monitoring the project’s implementation, by using specific indicators to evaluate the project’s progress. Also, you will need to define measurable outputs. Such deliverables can be for example reports, handbooks, training materials or other specific results from the project activities.

Last but not least, get prepared to submit regular progress reports and the final report to the EU and plan in the necessary resources for the reporting.

Alignment, objectives and impact

By addressing the above key questions and steps, you will have a good starting point for your CERV application. By aligning your project’s objectives and activities with the priorities of the EU Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values programme, demonstrating measurable impact on areas such as citizens’ rights, equality, and/or democratic engagement in line with the Call specifications, you will increase your chances of securing funding.

Wishing you lots of success!

Are you planning to apply for a CERV grant and would like learn step-by-step how to craft a compelling proposal? Join the hands-on, interactive online CERV proposal writing workshop on 4 September 2025! 

Do you need support with your CERV application? Please don’t hesitate to contact me.

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Astrid Mechel - EU Funding Consulting

Author: Astrid Mechel

https://eufundingconsulting.eu

Hello, I am Astrid Mechel and I work (for the most part) with small and medium sized organisations who aim to access EU funding. It is my goal to help discovering suitable EU project funding possibilities and to provide support to submit a high-quality grant application. My main thematic focus is on grants for research and innovation, environmental sustainability as well as on social inclusion and participation.

Read more articles here:

]]> https://eufundingconsulting.eu/getting-prepared-for-cerv-funding/feed/ 0 Funding for citizens’ and equal rights projects through the EU’s CERV (Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values) programme https://eufundingconsulting.eu/citizens-and-equal-rights-projects-cerv/ https://eufundingconsulting.eu/citizens-and-equal-rights-projects-cerv/#respond Tue, 20 Feb 2024 08:00:00 +0000 https://eufundingconsulting.eu/?p=2918

Funding for citizens' and equal rights projects through the EU CERV (Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values) programme

Funding for citizens' and equal rights projects through the EU CERV (Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values) programme

If your organisation is working in areas like citizen participation or equal rights, the EU’s CERV (Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values) programme may be worth looking into. CERV offers interesting funding opportunities for non-profit organisations and public entities such as towns and municipalities. Funded activities can range from citizen engagement projects to cooperation between cities, the integration of migrants or fighting disinformation, and several other topics. Read on to learn more.

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Participation of citizens and safeguarding equal rights

The CERV programme funds the democratic, civic and social participation of citizens including the involvement in political decision-making. This article mainly focuses on CERV funding opportunities for non-profit organisations and public authorities.

CERV projects can, for example, target civil and human rights protection and the promotion of equal rights of all citizens in accordance with the EU’s treaties and values. This involves not only gender equality, but non-discrimination and equal rights in a broader sense.

The projects can be implemented at local, regional, national and transnational level, depending on the requirements of the particular Call for Proposals. While citizen participation projects can be organised at local level, one interesting option is the direct exchange of citizens from different countries, thus offering them a really tangible European experience.

The CERV programme is composed of 4 funding strands:

Citizens’ Engagement and Participation

Within the Citizens’ Engagement and Participation strand, better participation of civil society in policy-making processes and empowering citizens are at the core of the activities. To this end, citizen engagement projects can be set up to support democratic participation. Funded topics can for example refer to understanding policy-making and participation in EU decision-making processes, or to climate and the environment or addressing other current societal challenges. In this context, workshops, debates or other exchange fora can be organized with the goal to propose solutions to decision-makers.

One of the defined objectives of CERV is to support good local governance and to strengthen the role of local and regional authorities in the EU integration process, for example through the exchange of best practices and cooperation between towns and municipalities in Europe. Funded activities include town-twinning and networks-of-towns projects which aim to increase citizens’ engagement in society and political life. In this framework, CERV provides the opportunity even for the very local level including citizens to cooperate beyond borders, to exchange and to learn from each other.

Union Values

The CERV Union Values strand finances projects to protect and promote the values of the EU in line with the EU treaties and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. For example, activities promoting the respect of human rights can be funded, including the protection of the rights of persons belonging to minorities. The fight against radicalisation and extremism can be supported within this funding strand too. Also, speaking of challenges that our digital world raises, activities related to combating hate crime and hate speech can be implemented.

Funded activities can include capacity-building of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), mutual learning and awareness raising activities. One of CERV’s goals is to better enable civil society organisations to be involved in policy and decision-making processes with local, regional, and national governments. In this respect, activities should either help to maintain or, where civil society influence is shrinking, contribute to a more open and inclusive democratic society.

Equality, Rights and Gender Equality

The Equality, Rights and Gender Equality strand of the CERV programme funds the promotion of equality and the fight against all grounds of discrimination and intolerance, including racism, xenophobia, gender, religion or belief, disability, age and sexual orientation.

Examples for possible activities are measures to fight against discrimination on the labour market such as gender pay gaps, tackling gender stereotypes, or supporting Roma equality, inclusion and participation.

Daphne: Preventing and combatting gender-based violence and violence against children

The fourth CERV programme strand supports projects to prevent and combat gender-based violence and violence against children including domestic violence. Funded activities can include awareness-raising, the training of professionals and victims support. Projects are expected to be executed by Member States’ public authorities, support services and Civil Society Organisations.

What you need to know when applying for CERV grants

So, what are the modalities for CERV projects? Depending on the specific Call for Proposals, a CERV project can sometimes be implemented by one single organisation or otherwise by a minimum number of participants from different countries. In the Network-of-Towns-Call 2024 for example, organisations must come from at least four different eligible countries of which at least two are EU Member States.

Many CERV projects are implemented by Civil Society Organisations and, depending on the Call topic, in cooperation with public authorities or other stakeholders such as for example educational, cultural or research institutions and universities. Funded activities can include ensuring equal rights of citizens, or citizen participation for example through the organisation of events or debates bringing citizens and/or other stakeholders together – locally, transnationally or virtually.

The maximum grant amounts and co-financing requirements depend on the individual Call. For some Calls and under certain conditions it allowed to include unit costs for volunteer work in the grant budget which is then counting towards your own contribution (co-financing) so that up to 100% of eligible costs could be reimbursed (but never more than 100% as profits are not permitted in EU funded projects – if there are profits, the grant amount will be reduced accordingly).

As an applicant organisation, you also need to show that you have the capacity to implement the project. This means you need to have stable and sufficient resources, including experienced and qualified staff for implementing such a project.

Your project application will be evaluated by independent expert evaluators through pre-defined criteria related to the relevance, quality and impact of your submitted project proposal. For these three overall criteria, there are more detailed sub-criteria which are usually published in the relating Call document. The procedure is competitive and the available budget will be awarded to the proposals which received the highest scores in the evaluation. Therefore, make sure your proposal is a real fit for the Call you are applying for and respond thoroughly within all sections of the application form.

To know more about how to apply for a CERV grant, check out my article “Getting prepared for your first CERV funding application – A 6-step approach”

Do you need support with your CERV application? Don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Are you planning to apply for a CERV grant and would like learn step-by-step how to craft a compelling proposal? Join the hands-on, interactive online CERV proposal writing workshop on 4 September 2025! 

Astrid Mechel - EU Funding Consulting

Author: Astrid Mechel

https://eufundingconsulting.eu

Hello, I am Astrid Mechel and I work (for the most part) with small and medium sized organisations who aim to access EU funding. It is my goal to help discovering suitable EU project funding possibilities and to provide support to submit a high-quality grant application. My main thematic focus is on grants for research and innovation, environmental sustainability as well as on social inclusion and participation.

Read more articles here:

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