In 2007, after becoming a locally-registered Foundation – an upgrade from its previous status as a representative office of the US-based Eurasia Foundation, (EF) in Armenia - Eurasia Partnership Foundation (EPF Armenia) had to undergo several changes in management structure, style and philosophy. Having no more core funds provided by USAID, EPF had to become a fundraising organization in order to survive. Beforehand, 85% of the Foundation’s personnel time was devoted to grant-making and 15% to program implementation aside from grant-making; since the change, fundraising was added to every EPF position’s job description. Additionally, the nature of program implementation changed: now EPF could not be a purely grant-making organization any more, therefore it had to utilize the expertise of its staff, partners, and external experts, to design and implement projects, within which the grant-making tool was retained. Grant-making went from being a pure support to local NGOs to a much more advanced tool. It gave a possibility of establishing and maintaining partnerships, building NGOs’ capacities, as well as a possibility to accumulate expertise and engage in the activities of the grantees. While EF/EPF worked on grantee capacity building before 2007, since 2007 the building of grantees’ capacities became another large and deep area of knowledge for EPF.
