Partnership Proposals

Public Institutions

The European institutions are the driving force in European policy making. Their decisions have leverage over big constituencies and need to be flawless. SMART Method of Public Policy helps enhance the understanding and the roles of the European institutions and how they function and encourages wide public interest and participation in the decision-making process. Moreover, the Method provides a participation platform called SolveNet that allows citizens to raise issues of importance to them but at the same time makes people more accountable by engaging them in providing solutions to those issues. 

The partnership that we propose to the European institutions is based on a methodology that enables citizens to exercise their right to participate in the democratic life of Europe and also to exercise their right to express constructive views on important issues. SMART Method of Public Policy brings to the policy-making table the most important player – the CITIZEN. The core activities of our partnership are:

• The Head of the institution/department/agency makes a public “call for solutions” to a given problem that the institution wants to address.
• A problem’s page is created on www.Public-Policies.eu that may contain a video of the call.
• Citizens contribute with solutions, on the problem’s page, on a given period of time.
• SMART Development Center officially asks the institution/department/agency to solve the problem issuing a policy paper backed-up by the solutions from the citizens.
• The Head of the institution/department/agency chooses the best solution to be implemented.
• A ceremony is organized where the person/s giving the best solutions are offered a prize.

Advantages:

• Citizens will offer solutions whenever they have time, free of charge, having the possibility to do background research.
• Any person can offer solutions, living anywhere in the world.
• All the messages are monitored to avoid licentious language.
• Only constructive solutions are published on the problem’s page.
• SMART Method of Public Policy does not generate complaints.
• The Head of the institution/department/agency spends little time to launch a “call for solutions.”
• The European institution/department/agency becomes closer to the citizens it is serving.

NGOs

We are looking for NGOs to implement SMART Method of Public Policy in other countries. The national partner will nominate a person to coordinate the country's citizen engagement platform. The main activities consist in approving problems of public concern proposed by citizens, approving solutions, issuing policy papers under the legal status of the NGO, publishing the policy papers on the national and local platforms, receiving the answers from the public institutions, and publishing the answers on the platform. Our mission is to generate many success stories of civic engagement.

Every partner NGO will receive acces to the administration panel of the country platform. This is designed to save time to accept problems, to publish solutions, to publish policy papers, and the answers from the public institutions. Moreover, our partner has the possibility to promote important community events. In order to start a collaboration, interested NGOs must first contact us by email or phone. 

Companies - CSR

If you represent a company and want to engage in Community Social Responsibility (CSR) projects, then you may want to check out our partnership proposal. Reaching out to your target group is both simple and fun, with SMART Method of Public Policy. 

Regardless of the size of your business, you may start a campaign to identify the best solutions to the problems that your company is addressing. This campaign would engage citizens in giving solutions to the problem/s you are interested in, putting them in contact with your business. To make things more enjoyable, we advise you to offer a prize or prizes to the citizens that participate in the campaign. The methodology is summed up below:

• A representative of the company works with us to publish a relevant problem of public concern.
• We create the problem’s page and adjust it to promote the business: publish the company logo, a video, as well as details about the company.
• If you decide to offer a prize or prizes to the people who offer the best solutions, we publish a photo of the prize/s as well.
• We organize together a press conference to outreach the community in an offline mode as well.
• We promote the problem’s page together  on social networking sites to generate more creative and constructive participation.
• We select the best solution/s to the problem.
• We issue the policy paper asking the relevant organizations to allocate resources and solve the problem.
• You offer the prize/s to the citizens that offered the best solution/s.
• We publish photos and a video from the award ceremony.

All these steps may be adjusted to suit your needs and to meet the criteria of SMART Method of Public Policy:

• Reduced budget.
• Great visibility both online and offline.
• Possibility to run multiple campaigns at the same time.
• Possibility to celebrate a day, every year (eg Earth Day if your activity lies in the area of environment).

Individuals

If you are an individual who cares about a certain problem in the community, we can collaborate to make an endowment for a prize that we would offer in your name. The partnership that we propose is aimed at offering the prize (eg “Your Name” Prize for "Your cause") at the same date every year, for a number of years that we decide together. 

The methodology is based on the following steps:

• You decide what date of the year you want us to book for your prize.
• You decide what is the category of the problem of public concern that you want to use your prize for (health, environment, education, etc).
• We generate the page of the problem and promote your prize.
• We promote the page of the problem so that more people participate with solutions.
• We award the prize with you or a representative of your family.
• We publish photos and video clips from the award ceremony as well as other relevant materials, on the page of the problem.
• We issue the policy paper for the authorities.
• We follow all the 5 steps of SMART Method of Public Policy until we generate a success story of participation.

The advantages of our partnership are based on the little amount needed for the prize endowment, the great promotion that we make for your name and the fact that each year we secure the same day to award the prize.

This website has been produced with the assistance of the European Union. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of SMART Development Center and can in no way reflect the views of the European Union.