Unique on a global scale, with grants in three editions and a fourth planned. The Polish Organizations Pooled Fund (POP Fund) is a new way of responding to humanitarian crises. The fund was created to support refugees from Ukraine in smaller towns, outside the largest urban areas in Poland.
The first year of POP Fund’s activities was summarised in Warsaw.
Over the course of its first year, the POP Fund held three competition editions, providing support to 55 projects with a total of 8 million PLN. This allowed smaller organizations, from Supraśl to Nowy Sącz and from Rzeszów to Zielona Góra, to assist Ukrainian refugees in a variety of ways. Support ranged from helping children adapt to the Polish education system with as few issues as possible, to food aid, and assistance for elderly individuals.
Assistance across Poland
In Warsaw, representatives from organizations that participated in the three competition editions of the POP Fund met with the Fund’s donors to summarize the support provided by the Fund and present ideas for the future.
- We were very focused on helping the refugees living in smaller towns in Poland. These places are often overlooked by the largest organizations,” said Dr. Wojtek Wilk, CEO of the Polish Center for International Aid (PCPM), the initiator of the POP Fund.
The three editions of the POP Fund involved foundations, associations, rural women’s circles, and other small organizations from smaller Polish towns.
- A solution like this Fund is something we know from Lebanon, where the Lebanon Humanitarian Fund operates. The difference is that there, the mechanism works within the UN, and the donors are member states. Here, the donors are corporations, companies, and the private sector, so this is a global-scale phenomenon,” added Dr. Wilk.
The donors of the POP Fund include Google, Meta, the Biedronka Foundation, The Pfizer Foundation, the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, and in the planned fourth edition, the PKO BP Bank Foundation and Meta.
- POP Fund is proof that there is strength in collaboration, and this way we can do more and help better,” said Magdalena Kotlarczyk, Country Director of Google Poland, as she opened the meeting in Warsaw.
A specific purpose
An important element of the POP Fund is transparency and purposeful action. The competitions have clearly defined goals, and donors know exactly which project their funds have been allocated to. For instance, the Biedronka Foundation focused on the challenges faced by elderly Ukrainian refugees.
“Loneliness, a sense of marginalization, the experience of loss—these are the experiences and feelings of elderly individuals. The place of residence also determines the situation they find themselves in. That’s why we focus our attention on this group,” said Katarzyna Scheer, CEO of the Biedronka Foundation.
The POP Fund is managed by a Steering Committee, which includes representatives from non-governmental organizations, donors, and both government and local authorities: the WIOSNA Association, the NGO Forum “Razem,” Google, Meta, the Biedronka Foundation, the City of Lublin, the Ministry of the Interior and Administration of Poland (MSWiA), and UNHCR (in the role of an observer).
Another edition is coming soon
The announcement of the next, 4th edition of the POP Fund is scheduled for October 14, which will focus on assistance following the flooding in areas affected by a state of natural disaster.
