About the project

Why us? The Burnout Aid project is carried out in the international partnership of the Culture Shock Foundation (Poland), Common Zone (Croatia) and City of Women (Slovenia). Operating for many years in the third sector in our countries, we have had a chance to learn about the pros and cons, splendors and shadows of educational and activist work in NGOs.

Every day, we see the great value that foundations, associations and informal movements bring to the development of civil society, how they assist in establishing a sense of community, fulfill an educational mission, and support those in need.

We also know what are the costs of such work and commitment on the part of educators and activists. We hope that our project will contribute to the creation of safer and friendlier working conditions in the third sector, as well as to the development of cooperation between NGOs throughout Europe. The Burnout Aid project is an unprecedented international activity aimed at preventing burnout among employees and volunteers in the NGO sector.

STAY IN TOUCH! If you want to take part in pilot activities in our project (platform testing, conducting burnout prevention workshops in the organization) write us at contact@burnout-aid.eu.

Burnout is commonly appearing in public discourse nowadays, but it is not easy to understand or deal with this issue - hermetic scientific publications are accompanied by amateur attempts to solve the matter, found on the Internet, making it hard to gain comprehensive, professional, useful and accessible knowledge that can be actually helpful. The specificity of the third sector may also cause a unique kind of threat - activist burnout. However, there is neither much detailed analysis of this phenomenon available, nor social awareness of the problem. Lack of tools to deal with burnout is specifically damaging to the sector.

As part of the project, in Poland, Croatia and Slovenia, we are conducting research (desk research, qualitative research) that will detail the causes of the problem, its scale and effects - both for the individual and the organization. Research will be carried out in foundations and associations supporting discriminated groups of recipients: women, LGBTQ + people, people with disabilities, seniors as well as refugees and migrants. We will look at the work in the organizations - we will ask the leaders, employees and volunteers about their experience. We will learn their point of view, perceived threats and good practices. We invite experts: NGO activists, psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, lawyers to cooperate in our activities so that the context of burnout in NGOs is shown as fully as possible.

After completing the research part, we will proceed to creating an innovative internet platform which will gather knowledge about burnout and present remedial methods to the problem. It will include a questionnaire to assess the level of burnout in NGOs and tools to prevent and counteract the phenomenon, such as recommendations, instructions, inspirations for employees and organizations, good practices, burnout prevention workshop scenarios, testimonials of people who have had similar experiences in the past.