In 2018 we provided our membership with a novelty in our Capacity Building program, a series of webinars in English where they could develop their knowledge.
Starting from the basics, in the trainings we have seen how to structure a patient organization and ensure a good governance - from the statutes, to the governing bodies and the management with Elena Balestra from the European Patients Forum (EPF). Again with Elena Balestra, we also focused on how to work with members - from membership criteria and application procedures, to challenges and opportunities linked to members’ involvement. An important issue discussed over the sessions was also how to attract partners and to implement a successful fundraising strategy with Antje Fink-Wagner from EFA.
In a more advance set of sessions, we also developed skills and competences that are needed for the day-to-day job as patient association. One of them was advocacy that we devised through two trainings with Tamsin Rose, an expert in providing strategic advice on health and civil society development. This included the key elements of advocacy and suggesting a framework for advocacy actions. We also learned that everything we do requires planning and good management as a key to success.
The participants learned the basis for being a good project manager and about some tools that can facilitate this job with Hans Wolters from the Organizational Development Support (OS). But all the successes and achievements would mean nothing if we are not able to communicate about it, so we organized two more sessions, one about written and oral communication and the other one looking more at communication tools such as social media and the media with Vicky Marissen, partner at EPPA, a specialist management consultancy, specialized in trainings on communications.
The webinars were held between October 2018 and January 2019 and served to exchange and learn from best practices and experiences from EFA members as well. We hope participants have found it useful and can be able to apply them in their daily work immediately. In case you have missed some sessions or want to look back at certain aspects, you can consult all webinars’ presentations here. If you participated in the sessions, and did not submit your short evaluation questionnaire yet, please do so as we are compiling an evaluation report, and develop the capacity building according to feedback and needs of members. The recording will also be made available to our members.
Next year we will again organize webinars on different, and more specific topics related to the specific work and expertise needed as allergy and airways patients’ associations. Check our website or twitter regularly to attend the call.