About

Hire instead of build.

Groundwork is the in-country operational team for small and mid-sized European NGOs running programs in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Where programs fail.

Most programs that fail in Bosnia don't fail because the design was wrong. They fail in implementation. The supplier disappears with the deposit. The ministry permit sits for six months. The foreigner premium eats 30% of the procurement budget. The local intermediary turns out to cost more than they save. Large international NGOs solve this with a country office and a compliance team. Smaller organisations don't have that option, but they still have the same problems to solve — with less money and less margin for error. Groundwork exists to be the in-country operational team those organisations can hire instead of build.

How we work.

We handle the practical side: customs and procurement, ministry permits, supplier vetting, contracts drafted and reviewed in Bosnian, and the working relationships with local authorities those contracts depend on. Your team designs the program. Ours runs it on the ground. Most of what makes this work is local knowledge that doesn't appear in any document — which suppliers deliver and which disappear, which permits genuinely take six months and which are moving normally, which intermediaries earn their fee. That judgment takes years to build. It's what organisations hire us for instead of assembling it themselves. We work as an embedded extension of your team — with local hands, international standards, and the operational experience to get Bosnia right.

30-minute call

Start with a 30-minute scoping call.

Tell us where the program is and what's stuck. We'll tell you honestly whether Groundwork is the right fit — and if we're not, what to do instead.

Book a scoping call