![EPIM](/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Epim-logo-svg.svg" "EPIM"){kind=logo}
EPIM is a collaborative funding initiative of currently twenty-five grant-making foundations, hosted by the Network of European Foundations (NEF).
Rosario Alioto, Budget and Grants Manager
Michela Bramardi, Programme Manager
Sophie Ngo-Diep, Co-Director
Hrishabh Sandilya, Co-Director
Masha Volynsky, Building Inclusive Societies in CEE
Elizabeth Novacek, Storytelling and Communications
Acting in a collaborative manner, our Mission is to facilitate dialogue and build alliances and partnerships between those working on migration, with a systemic approach. Specifically, we combine funds, expertise and networks to connect and support people, organisations, institutions and movements to change the way migration is being addressed and perceived.
We believe that a constructive dialogue between civil society and policymakers is vital to ensure that decision-making capitalises on the insights and experiences of migrants and the communities they live in. Therefore, we empower civil society to be recognised as key actors in the design, implementation and evaluation of migration and integration policies and practices at local, national and European level.
Through grant-making, capacity and knowledge development, we enable civil society organisations to be more sustainable and impactful. We support them in building effective pan-European coalitions and in shaping pan-European solutions by promoting a constructive interplay between policies and practices at all levels.
We initiate timely responses to opportunities and challenges in distinct, yet often interconnected areas of importance. This approach enables us to provide targeted and outcome-driven support in domains such as working with children and youth on the move for their protection and empowerment, promoting alternatives to immigration detention, contributing to the development of humane and effective asylum systems, enhancing community cohesion, enabling mobile EU citizens to exercise their free movement rights, and contributing to a more balanced discourse on migration.
We work with international funders to leverage resources on migration-related work based on opportunities, needs and potential for impact.
We provide foundations with a strategic space to link their work to overarching field-building efforts at European level, to stay updated about developments in the field, and to pursue joint learning on the issue of migration with key partners across national borders. Through collective action, we enable funders to be bolder in the face of risk, to enhance their geographical reach and to maximise their impact and legitimacy in the field.
Through a number of dedicated Thematic Funds, we provide funding to civil society organisations with concrete ambitions for policy and practice change.
We contribute to the development of capacities in and among civil society organisations for them to be sustainable and impactful agents of change.
Based on needs in the field, we are developing and sharing knowledge of policy, practice and impact to support the work of civil society.
Our efforts include a continuous ambition to connect and coordinate actors within and beyond the migration sector.
EPIM Partner Foundations and Associated Foundations play a key role in EPIM’s Governance.
Partner Foundations are foundations who contribute to the programme in it’s entirety while Associated Foundations have decided to contribute to a specific ambition of EPIM in a Thematic Fund.
The Steering Committee represents all EPIM Partner Foundations. Dedicated representatives of foundations who act as Steering Committee members ensure the link between EPIM and the foundations’ ambitions. The Steering Committee operates as a Board that adopts strategic decisions in meetings twice a year, approves annual budget allocations and supports the team’s work.
The EPIM Executive Committee is a sounding board to the team and is mandated by the Steering Committee to take decision on day-to-day programme matters.
The EPIM Chair acts as the representative of the Steering Committee and leads the implementation of the activities following the Steering Committee strategy, whilst co-operating closely with the team. The current Chair of EPIM is Raphaela Schweiger of the Robert Bosch Stiftung.
Thematic Fund Committees operate as the governing bodies of the thematic funds and as such, oversee the strategy and implementation of the thematic funds. The Steering Committee delegates decision-making on the thematic fund development and implementation to the Thematic Fund Committee.
