Anastasia Hryshko, Executive Director of the Kherson Regional Charitable Foundation “Union,” and Foundation Manager Volodymyr Puzyriov participated in the workshop “Strategy Development in Civil Society Organizations,” held as part of the Impulse Project. The event is organized by the International Renaissance Foundation and the East Europe Foundation with funding from Norway (Norad) and Sweden (Sida).
Over the course of three days, representatives of civil society organizations from various regions of Ukraine worked on analyzing the environment, challenges facing organizations, strategic choices, prioritizing decisions, and planning further actions. The workshop program included small-group work, joint discussions, and reflections on strategic planning processes in civil society organizations.
For the Union Foundation, this is not the first strategic session. For many years, we have been systematically working to develop the organization, review our approaches, and shape a long-term vision for our activities. At the same time, participating in such events remains an important opportunity for us to view our own work from a different angle, rethink familiar processes, and compare our experience with those of other organizations.
One of the practical insights from the workshop for our team was an exercise dedicated to analyzing the political context and its impact on the organization’s development. We had not previously viewed our own activities from this specific angle. This proved to be a challenging task, especially given the specific context of the Kherson region, where the political landscape remains poorly defined and highly volatile due to the war, the security situation, and constant changes in the environment.
Equally valuable was the exchange of experiences with colleagues from the civil society sector. Despite differences in the scale of activities, subject areas, and the geographic scope of work, many strategic challenges proved shared: from balancing immediate response and long-term planning to team management, burnout, and maintaining the organization’s focus amid constant uncertainty.
The Fund’s team was particularly struck by the event facilitator Maria Lemberg’s remark: “We are healed and wounded by people.”
In the public sector, this phrase resonates deeply. It is precisely the people—the teams, partners, and communities we work with—who often become a source of support, strength, and inspiration to keep moving forward even under the most challenging conditions. At the same time, working in an environment of constant stress, loss, and high responsibility makes human interaction far from easy (to put it mildly). And strategizing in this context is not just about goals, metrics, or plans, but also about trust, team resilience, values, and the ability to listen to one another.
Also, during the workshop, we found our “dragon.” What it is and why it became important to our team—we’ll keep that within the organization for now. But sometimes it is precisely such symbolic discoveries that help us better understand our own challenges and areas for growth.
We thank the workshop organizers for the opportunity to join a professional conversation about CSO development, as well as all participants for their openness to sharing experiences, for honest discussions, and for the joint search for answers to complex questions.
