The main objective of this project was to exchange knowledge and experience of liberal parties in building a permanent engagement with citizens and a successful permanent campaign based on storytelling and emotions. More precisely, a well-established political party – which has proven to be successful in advocating liberal solutions nonstop – were matched with rather new start-up parties. Hence, both were in the position to learn from each other, in terms of developing strategies to effectively engage with citizens and keep on doing so throughout election cycles. Consequently, the outcomes will benefit parties in future elections, especially the European elections of 2019.

The main idea was to gather three times the same group of campaigners to build on their knowledge and skills, but because of the political circumstances (elections in Hungary and street protest in Slovakia) it was no possible. Nevertheless, engaged campaigners participated in all four events. Based on the expertise of the participants of respective events, the angle of each training was a bit different.

The project was designed mostly for liberal organizations from Central Europe, united on the New Central Europe platform within the ALDE Party, with participation of the USR Romania, and the Reform Party (Estonia). The Western European perspective was given by experts from VVD International, SILC and Friedrich Naumann Stiftung Brussels. In the last event participants from the Ukrainian party Sila Lyudey were also involved.

In total 15 campaigners from 5 different countries were trained. Additionally, ca. 40 other participants were involved in project’s activities.