Young Pro's Incubator
SPARK offers incubator space at the University of Amsterdam, where young NGO's have access to office facilities, as well as free consulting on project development and project management. The incubation activities bring together young ambitious development workers with new ideas, methods and approaches. The mission of the SPARK incubator is to provide incubation services to young NGOs, helping them to develop their organisations into independent NGOs that successfully implement their missions. By assisting them to become full development organisations ready to act in an increasingly competitive environment, this project aims to focus on organisations that contribute to structural poverty reduction, directly or indirectly, by helping to build the capacity of local partners with a similar mission.

The incubator is located at:

CREA 2 Building - Room 2.25
Vendelstraat 2, 1012XX, Amsterdam
Tel: +31(0)20 525 2495

At this moment, 5 organisations are active in the incubator:

• Young Urban Achievers (http://www.yuafoundation.org/)
• Balkan Buro (http://www.balkanburo.org/ )
  
• Danube Foundation (http://www.danube-foundation.eu/)
• LifeLines
  
• Computers for Development (http://www.computersfordevelopment.org/)

         

   
 

Young Pro's Training Programme
In November 2007, SPARK started with a training programme for young and innovative NGO's in the Netherlands. The training sessions, provided by different organisations and experts such as MDF, BBO, Dubois & Co, and others, focus on all kinds of topics that are important for a young NGO: developing a donor-proof proposal, preparing a sound budget, developing a communication plan, a good partner policy, lobbying and much more.

Training programmes:

• Coaching Trajectory Professionalisation by Context, International Cooperation: 5 coaching sessions between 12 November 2008 and 16 April 2009. Young NGO's work on professionalisation issues together, professionally coached by Context.
• 22 november 2007 - 21 february 2008: Training program by MDF (http://www.mdf.nl/). 7 sessions on Project planning, Logical Framework, Project management, Monitoring and Evaluation.
• 6 March 2008: How to develop a sound budget and how to manage the financial aspect of the project, Dubois&Co (http://www.dubois.nl/)
• 17 April 2008: Workshop Lobbying, BBO (http://www.bbo.org/) 
• 15 May 2008: Sales and Communication Training: how to develop a sound communication plan; how to ‘sell' my project and organization towards donors and potential partners, Sales & Pepper & Steensma (http://www.salesandpepper.nl/, http://www.steenvoud.com/) 
• 18 September 2008: Partnerships with the Private Sector, by http://www.opzoeknaarmeerwaarde.nl/ and http://www.goeiedingendoen.com/