The Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies and the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan partnered together to sponsor a bootcamp in Bratislava, Slovakia, on leadership for civil society organizations. From 20th October to 23rd October, the program welcomed participants from 20 CSOs from transitional countries. Both of these centers missions have strengthening democracy and civil society at their core and partnered with Pontis Foundation from Slovakia, they provided instructors to train participants with the goal of improving the managerial capacity of the organizations.
Activities and workshops targeted five different areas: advocacy and public policy building, management, marketing strategies, planning and sustainability, and communication and negotiation. The participants traveled from 12 different countries for the bootcamp: Albania, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Tunisia and Ukraine. Ronald Weiser, former U.S. ambassador to Slovakia and Weiser Center founder, helped fund the bootcamp and was also a guest speaker. BCSDN Programme Manager, Ilina Nesik, participated in the bootcamp.