1. Maidan: A History of
Making History
Since 2000 website “Maidan” operates as a civic initiative and is
community driven.
Ukrainian online
community formed
in 2000 by activists
united to protest
the murder of
independent
journalist Georgiy
Gongadze.
Maidan is a major
on-line
crowdsourced
volunteer platform
for and by activists
http://world.maidanua.org

2. Involvement
140.000 readers of our website monthly
30 NGO members – core editors and
speakers
300 dedicated activists (newsmakers and
authors) contributing continuously
8000 activists coming occasionally for
particular campaigns
60 NGOs contributing continuously
340 NGOs contributing occasionally for
particular campaigns
Contributors are from all regions of
Ukraine, 16 countries of Europe,
Americas and Australia
20% stay with us since 2000. 50% of our community joined in
2004. Recent growth of civic activity reflected in broadening
of our community. http://world.maidanua.org

3. Maidan’s Network
http://world.maidanua.org
Network graph
shows 300 dedicated
Maidan’s
contributors staying
with us for years.

4. Maidan’s Mission
Protection, promotion, and expansion of human rights and
civil freedoms
Because of our dedication to verifying all reports and news,
our organization is unique on an international scale.
We fulfill our mission by means of:
Capacity building – via popular website, books, movies, press
conferences, seminars
Strictly verifying each piece of information for accuracy and
legality
Civic lobbying
Monitoring of the government activities
Legal defense of constitutional rights
Facilitating civic dialogue
http://world.maidanua.org

5. Our Strategic Goals
 To encourage proactive access to information by citizens
 To increase citizens’ intolerance to violations of human
rights and civil freedoms
 To involve citizens into the crowd-sourced monitoring of
observance of political rights and civil freedoms
 To encourage citizens’ participation in active forms of
peaceful protest actions
 To encourage responsible, trustworthy, persuasive citizen
journalism
We provide expertise and perspective on Ukraine and the
unique threats to democracy in Ukraine. http://world.maidanua.org

6. Maidan’s Story
‘Maidan’ is a Ukrainian word for ‘square’ - an open area in a town.
Since the Orange Revolution on Independence Square in Kyiv in 2004 the
word acquired a broader meaning becoming a synonym for public protest.
We introduced this synonymic meaning on our website in Dec 2000.
•Dec 2000 - Maidan was created as the official website of "Ukraine without
Kuchma" rallies on Maidan (Independence Square) in Kyiv, 250.000
publications since
•Since 2005 our community assumed a name Maidan Alliance and created
a formal association
•2012 we created a legal entity - NGO “Maidan Monitoring Information
Center”
Site gets 120.000+ visitors per month for the last 8 years.
Most of our visitors are dedicated activists. Our projects
traditionally involve hundreds of volunteers
http://world.maidanua.org

7. Not Just Another Site
Maidan operates under public website information policy adopted by
consensus of newsmakers. We foster and encourage by means of expert
dialogue, capacity building and open exchange of knowledge:
Protests, lawsuits, campaigns against human rights and civil freedoms
violations and illegal actions of government
Citizens’ efforts to organize and cooperate
to defend their rights and civil freedoms
Illegal actions of government authorities
Freedom of information
History of dissent and movements
for independence
Presenting news of civic activism
in Ukraine to English speaking readers
Maidan was featured on TV Channel 5, Channel 24, TVi,
foreign media: France24, Voice of America, National Public
Radio (USA). http://world.maidanua.org

8. Crowdsourced News
2004 – Maidan - the main communication hub for Orange Revolution activists.
Volunteers reported more news than any information agency – up to 1500 a day.
Monitors aggregated election reports from 30 countries
70 cars patrolled election precincts in Kyiv and coordinated actions via site
Our news were used in the Supreme Court when settling election dispute
During the day of parliamentary election (October 28,
2012) we had 75.000 visitors a day and worked despite
severe DDoS attack involving botnet of 40.000 computers
During this crucial time Maidan handled
immense amount of information. It was a
time of success and challenges alike. We
learned our lessons and gradually
developed and implemented strict rules
for verifying each piece of news prior to
publishing it.
Max traffic ever: 500.000 visitors a day 23
November 2004
30 editors were working with data flow
http://world.maidanua.org

9. Crowdsoursed Books
Maidan published 4 crowdsourced books,
dedicated to history of dissent during
USSR regime.
1.Books are created on our forum.
2.Topic is announced and people are starting
asking questions. Anyone could participate.
3.We find the experts.
4.Experts provide the answers on forum.
5.Further discussion allows to word the answers
in more interesting and persuasive way.
6.The final text and photos are published in a
book.
7.We finance the publications ourselves.
Latest book (2012) is “Underground church in totalitarian
state”. http://world.maidanua.org

10. Pioneering Access to
Government data
Since 2005 - the campaign to declassify the secret documents
of government that eventually led to a decrease in the number
of acts illegally classified.
2007 - President’s acts that obviously included corruption
activities were declassified
Since 2008 – Right to know portal dedicated to information
rights in Ukraine and abroad; improving the information laws
2009 – State Management Agency revealed it’s budget
2011 - Parliament revealed its expenditures
2012 – We have 3 cases in European Court on Human Rights
Maidan pioneered open access to information issue since 2005.
It’s largely to Maidan’s efforts that civil sector pressure in this
regard led to the passing of law. http://world.maidanua.org

11. Civic Lobbying
2006 - campaign to compare electoral promises and voters’ expectations
(we confirmed scientifically they do not match)
2006-2007 – contributed to successful campaign demanding President to
dismiss corrupt Parliament
2006-2007 - the campaign of
non-partisan candidate for
the office of Human Rights
Commissioner. He was nominated
officially. We engaged 340 NGOs.
2011-2012 – successful campaign a
gainst non personal voting of
Ukrainian Members of Parliament
2011-2012 – successful campaign
against attempts of state censorship
over the Internet
Our main lobbying focus now is the improvement of
legislations implementing the right to free assembly. http://world.maidanua.org

12. Monitoring Freedoms
Since 2011: We monitor the observance of civic rights and freedoms in Ukraine. We
try to attract attention of citizens to cases of violations and to make the government
to observe the rights in reality, not only in constitutional declarations.
4 regional prosecutor’s offices acted on our requests to invalidate illegal rulings restricting
peaceful assembly.
The total number of violations published on
interactive map as for April 2013 is 273.
Our focus now is
•freedom of peaceful assembly
•freedom of expression
•freedom of information
•freedom of speech
•freedom of conscience
We prepared two policy papers, a
chapter for annual report “Human
rights in Ukraine 2012”
http://world.maidanua.org

13. Monitoring Elections
2012. Interactive crowd-sourced map of violations of electoral law. Citizen reports
were added to the map only accompanied by photo and/or video evidence and
after verification by law experts. We observed the systemic violations.
Parliamentary election in Ukraine
were held on October 28, 2012.
1637 complaints regarding violations of the electoral law were added to the interactive map.
The total number of violations reported to the project team was 7062.
Software and experience will be used for monitoring
next elections. We monitor elections since 2004.
476 volunteers
reported from 421
locations.
Together with
ombudsman we made
the Central Election
Commission to add
warning signs about
cameras not
observing the voting
booths.

14. Maidan Reload 3d
Expert
discussions
are
broadcast
live via
Youtube.
Connecting
people
online and
offline (see
next slide)
High technology wide area conferencing pioneered by Maidan in
2013 to facilitate and coordinate discussions via live events,
forums and video conferencing.
http://world.maidanua.org

15. Maidan Reload 3d
http://world.maidanua.org
People in a
club talk
directly to
people in
other cities
and
countries.
The topics
of debates
are usually
not
mainstream
in the
media.
March 19, 2013. Kharkiv. The debate topic is “Whether the social
media have impact on the government in Ukraine”. Most say they
do.

16. Sources of Funding
Most Maidan’s activities are traditionally funded by the
members including our regular information work.
Currently Maidan projects are supported by contributions of
members and the International Renaissance Foundation.
We were also getting funding from:
International Renaissance Foundation (since 2004)
National Endowment for Democracy (2004-2005)
USAID (with Freedom House) (2007)
European Commission (2009-2011)
Sometimes we announce fundraising and our site’s visitors respond with
contributions. Last call was in 2011 to raise money to cover expenses for
filming the memoirs of survivors of Soviet Gulag.
http://world.maidanua.org

17. Maidan’s Budget 2012
Contributions of members in 2012 amounted to 57%, grants by
the International Renaissance Foundation 42%, other 1%.
Project Total
Fees and
honoraria
Volunteer
work
Mail and
office
supplies Services
Equipm
ent
Commu
nication
Printed
materials
Travel
expense Funding
Maidan site 4 036 36 152 305 3 691 2 229 Volunteers
Maidan forum 795 8 343 Volunteers
Right to Know 265 2 781 Volunteers
Government
and Society 136 1 423 Volunteers
Election 2012 3 063 6 298 282 19 850 IRF
1 784 2 629 Volunteers
1 238
European
Parliament
57
Vinnytsya
community
29
Ternopil
community
Monitoring 2 626 7 229 1 825 12 396 IRF
4 190 1 935 Volunteers
Total 114 665 13 526 54 674 2 107 32 246 4 869 3 691 2 229 1 324
Volunteer work contributions are amounted only for those contributing daily not less than 1 hour a day, €8
per hour. Volunteers equipment contribution accounted for actual time used for projects. Amounts – in
Euro.
http://world.maidanua.org

18. MemberMember
How we get volunteers
to contribute permanently?
We are drawing resources to our members thus earning their
loyalty and continuous contribution. http://world.maidanua.org
NGONGO
MoneyMoney
Social
capital
Social
capital
Visibility
Confidence
Knowledge
Earns
more
Boosts

19. The Team
Maidan is a network of experienced human rights activists, law, psychology,
communication and IT experts, journalists and technically savvy concerned citizens.
We do care about the validity of information and never engage in infotainment.
Throughout all of it's history Maidan has been bringing together
civil activists and experts from Ukraine and abroad dedicated to
strengthening democracy in Ukraine.
We set our own style.
We telecommute for 12 years. No
formal office ever, we do not need it.
Our NGO
members live
in Kyiv,
Kharkiv, Lviv,
Odesa,
Simferopol,
Ternopil,
Kremenchuk,
Donetsk,
Olexandria,
Ukraine; USA
and Canada.
http://world.maidanua.org

20. Contact Maidan
Volodymyr Khanas, Ternopil, Ukraine
Phone: +380 96 210 4076
Email: khanas.volodymyr@gmail.com
Twitter: @khanasv
Vitaly Ovcharenko, Donetsk, Ukraine
Phone: +380 66 271 6085
Email: donetsk.arhivi@ukr.net
Twitter: @vital_ovchar
Yuriy Lukanov, Kyiv, Ukraine
Phone: +380 50 353 6789
Email: vonakul@gmail.com Skype: yurluk2007
Natalka Zubar, Kharkiv, Ukraine
Phone: +380 50 401 23 83
Email: pani@maidanua.org Skype: nelliza111
Our site in Ukrainian http://maidanua.org
Maidan highlights: http://top.maidanua.org http://world.maidanua.org
Oleksiy Kuzmenko, Washington,
DC
Phone: 202 549 20 68
Email:
oleksiy.kuzmenko@gmail.com
Skype: oleksiykuzmenko