EU Project Experience

Substantial experience

Our European journey began in 2015 with the launch of the Access Europe project, a civil society support service to assist Irish NGOs to access EU funding. In this period, we have grown in other areas of EU policy and programmes, including:

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• Delivering three Erasmus + projects as project coordinator for example SCOPE 
• Serving as the National Contact Point for the Europe for Citizens programme (2015-2021)
• Delivering the European Parliament Ambassador Schools Programme (EPAS)
• Serving as International Capacity Development and Networking Supervisor/Consultant on an EU funded skills capacity programme in partnership with Civil Society Development Centre Association (STGM) in Turkey
• We are a partner in the Erasmus+ funded project Foundations for Sector Three: it is an induction training programme for the nonprofit community. It has been designed for people who have recently started working in the sector; new entrants, recent college graduates, or those who have made a career change.

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Key to our success is the level of in-house expertise we bring to every project. With a committed team of 28 (including a dedicated Access Europe team), we offer a diverse range of skills comprising programme management, compliance, events, logistics, and communications. The skillset and experience of delivering at a National and European level brings added value to every project.

For more information on our European projects, please see our website.

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EU Funding Goals

Skills Development

Programmes like Erasmus+ offer opportunities to develop training content and innovative new approaches and techniques to build the capacity of the sector and help them stay up to date with current best practice. We are interested in a wide range of training topics that could strengthen our sector.

Research & Engagement

Increasingly, European research and innovation funding is focused on tackling societal challenges and adopting a more inclusive, engaged research approach. There is, therefore, a real need for the third sector to take a more active role in driving research and innovation. Our research interests include:

• Developing better third sector systems;
• Building the eco-system for academia and the third sector to collaborate;
• Capitalising on the third sector’s unique role in communities to implement positive behavioural changes.

Policy & Outreach

The Wheel is committed to developing an active and engaged citizenship through its membership and the unique position that third sector organisations have in their communities. A key component of that is European citizenship and encouraging citizens to actively engage with European democracy and the rights and privileges they enjoy as Europeans. Moreover, many policy decisions made at European level directly affect our members and the communities they represent, and so there is a need to ensure that the voice of the sector is heard and understood at a European level. As representatives for the sector, it is The Wheel’s responsibility to ensure that.

Strengths

The Wheel builds partnerships based on trust, mutual respect and the open exchange of skills and experience. We pride ourselves on our professionalism, efficiency and commitment to quality, and we are looking for partners who do the same.

In all of ourprojects, we bring:

• A wealth of experienceand excellent track record of project delivery
• Dedicated staff withexpertise on everything related to the non-profit sector
• Our unparalleled networkand proven community outreach model