We are proud that we have achieved so many great things this year and that we have made a future a little brighter for the kids we’ve touched through our projects.

We wish to thank all of you who boldly walked with us each step of the way. We couldn’t have done this without you!

Thank you for 2015 and let’s work together to make 2016 even more memorable!

Happy holidays,  

Your Novak Djokovic Foundation team

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 Novak Djokovic Foundation is pleased to announce an open call for NDF Writing Fellows 2014/2015. This is an ideal opportunity for those who are looking to get to a byline and build their clips portfolio for a future career in journalism. Meet Daniel Sargent and Marine Strauss, NDF Writing Fellows 2013/2014 and learn what they have to say about their experience.

1. How would you qualify your experience as the NDF Writing Fellow?

Daniel Sargent: I thoroughly enjoyed serving as an NDF Fellow for the Sports page. It was challenging to think of new articles each week but I had the opportunity to write about interesting topics ranging from physical education to the Paralympic Games.

Marine Strauss: My experience as the NDF Fellow has been very enriching. I have been writing for the foundation since June 2014 on various topics such as eating habits, body image, tracking device or PG ratings among others. It is always a pleasure to discover which topic I am assigned, research it and write it. It is also very rewarding when people comment and engage with an article I wrote. The mission of the foundation is something I personally believe in, since it was important for me that it was aligned with my values and beliefs.

2.  What did you learn through the process?

Daniel Sargent: This fellowship helped me learn how to write for different audiences. Some articles provided advice for parents on raising active children. Other articles highlighted sport NGOs and their impact on children. It was beneficial to learn how to write both topical and more academic pieces.

Marine Strauss:Through the process I learned that the less I knew about a topic or something in general, the more I enjoyed writing about it. Even when sometimes I would receive the title and thought “how can I write about such and such”, I found it easier to address it because I had no expectations or bias towards it.

3. In what ways the fellowship has helped your writing career?

Daniel Sargent: It has helped me increase my number of bylines and improve as a writer on a weekly basis. In addition, I work in the sports industry so I have been able to reference this fellowship as a source of professional development.

Marine Strauss:The fellowship has helped me practice my writing almost every week, which is the most important thing for someone who wants to pursue a writing career. Practice makes perfect, and only through writing more and more can you find and improve your style. Writing on a wide range of topic has also been very helpful and allowed me to expand my horizons in terms of researching and writing.

4.  Why would you recommend this program to the students? Why is it beneficial?

Daniel Sargent: This is an excellent program for students; not only will they gain more writing experience, but they will also have an opportunity to learn more about    diverse work of the Foundation. I enjoyed writing about sports, but I equally enjoyed reading many insightful articles on NDF site about health, parenting, and education.

Marine Strauss: I would definitely recommend students to apply for this program because it is very flexible, different every week and it is a great opportunity to start a writing career. It does not take a lot of time which makes it easy to commit to the position on the long-term, even after finding a job. It is beneficial since it puts your name out there, enhances your portfolio and, let’s face it, everybody thinks you are working for No.1 tennis player Novak Djokovic – how cool is that!?

5. Where do you work now and on what position?

Daniel Sargent: I work as an Analyst at CSL International. CSL International is a consulting firm that specializes in feasibility studies for new sports stadiums. I help with  research and write case studies for Premier League Soccer and NBA teams.

Marine Strauss:I am now working for Bloomberg News in London, as a Billionaires reporter.

Information for Applicants

Who Are the NDF Writing Fellows?

They are original voices. They are students or recent graduates, poised for the next step in their career. NDF Writing Fellows are passionate about fostering a positive impact through their writing.They join the Novak Djokovic Foundation editorial team with a mission to influence and change their surroundings for the better.

The Program

During the four month program , NDF Writing  Fellows are fully immersed in all the segments of the editorial at the Novak Djokovic Foundation. They publish every week and  share their expertise and ideas and engage in developing engaging stories.

Skills Development

NDF Writing Fellows are looking to start off their writing careers and  set out on the journey towards the career with great professional impact. Novak Djokovic Foundation provides the experienced team of our Chief Editors to guide and mentor the Fellows into becoming professional writers. Every Writing Fellow is given an opportunity to pitch the ideas, engage in the NDF debates and get the peer feedback. The NDF Writing Fellows program is  designed to increase confidence of young writers and enhance their skills for a professional career in media, philanthropy and  journalism.

How to Apply?

Online application will not be considered completed unless it has:

• a cover letter, résumé,
• 3 to 5 clips of your work
• list of references with the choice of the section you would like to contribute to, including a 800/900 word feature discussing the topic of your choice

All applications should be sent to careers@novakdjokovicfoundation.org

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Watch Novak’s interview:

Novak čoković za BBC 18.5. – Novak Djokovic for BBC 18.5. from Novak Djokovic Foundation on Vimeo.

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All of us learned and made progress, which will help us in the following year and all the years to come. Our Foundation in 2013 raised a lot of money that has been carefully directed. So, we can say that we have ended this year with good feelings and satisfaction.

We did a lot of things. Firstly, we opened three Schools of Life in the municipalities of Ljig, Knić and Raška, where nearly 100 children enrolled preschool programs in a very short time. We have chosen to help these poor and underdeveloped rural areas in Serbia, where the offer for children is very limited. Living conditions there are quite difficult, and preschool education suffers. This project is strategically very important for our Foundation, and therefore we will continue opening new Schools of Life in 2014.

Furthermore, “Family Outreach Worker” has been launched. This is a three year project funded by Novak Djokovic Foundation. With great efforts of UNICEF and the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, a brand new service in the social welfare system has been introduced in Serbia, in order to strengthen families in crisis. At the same time its goal is to reduce the risks of placement of children under three in institutions. In September, the first 53 families with 118 children started using this service, in four cities in Serbia (Belgrade, Kragujevac, Niš and Novi Sad). Service is provided by 16 professional team members, and the first results are expected in February 2014.

In 2013 we donated funds for complete reconstruction of schoolyard in special school “Anton Skala” in Belgrade, which takes care of 100 children with disabilities. NDF helped the project which won the first award in Beijing 2008, at the Mondialogo School Contest initiated by UNESCO. The result was that the kids from school got a new, modern and safe playground, with fitness sets for physical and moto-skill development and other moto-didactic sets and materials.

Our Foundation has a mission to assist organizations with the same goals and mission as ours. One of them is “Romanipen”, cultural and educational Roma organization from Kragujevac. NDF donated equipment and toys for children living in the city and suburban areas. We wanted to help children develop cognitive, graphomotor skills through play and fun, which they do not have the opportunity in everyday life. In addition, together with Roma Education Fund and city of Kragujevac, NDF organised a wonderful summer camp for 45 Roma and socially challenged kids.

This year more than 50 children aged seven to 10, from three rural primary schools, from Knic, Ljig and Raska municipalities, gathered in the first “Friendship Games” camp on Kopaonik. Novak Djokovic Foundation has organised this event wishing to provide children with opportunity to meet and socialize, acquire new skills, play and create together and to learn through numerous art and creative workshops, games and group activities. “Friendship Games” were a true success – smiles on children’s faces during the games, and tears in their eyes saying goodbye told us everything.

Novak Djokovic Foundation has donated 43 bicycles to socially disadvantaged children over 10 years old, from Vladicin Han, Surdulica, Bojnik and Lebane, which are all very poor areas in Serbia. The Foundation also provided New Year gifts to children from foster families in Belgrade.

At the end of the year, Novak Djokovic Foundation has collected more than 3,000 pieces of warm clothing and shoes within campaign “Let’s keep all children warm” which were delivered to drop-in centers from Belgrade and shelters for children in Niš to help them get through the winter.

We could not have succeeded if it hadn’t been for our charity dinners that took place in London and New York, where we raised money for our projects. Dear guests and friends of NDF – Milutin Gatsby, Rehana and Gordon Uehling, Job Brooks, Brendan Murphy, Anna Wintour, Mo Stojnovic, Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenia, Sir Richard Branson, Gerard Butler, Ronnie Wood, Erin O’Connor, Lior Suchard, Jeremy Piven, Branislav Ivanovic, Jonathan Ross, Marion Bartoli, Tim Henman, Matt Bellamy, Naomi Campbell, Adriana Lima, Kate Hudson, Goldie Hawn, Donna Karan, Tommy Hilfiger, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe and many more helped people hear for our Foundation and become aware of the problems of early education in Serbia. NDF appreciates their help.

We also want to thank all of you who follow us on the internet. Big thanks to all our bloggers who share with us their thoughts, experiences, comments and write stories for blog.novakdjokovicfoundation.org, helping the important issues reach many people worldwide.

We want to say a big THANKS for endless support to all our partners who recognized our mission, and who is trying with us to help children from Serbia have a nice childhood and the opportunity to make all their dreams come true.

At the end, I want to thank the entire NDF team, Novak, Jelena, Dijana, Marija, Gorana, Marko, Andjelka, Bojana, Nebojsa, Jelena Vemic, Ivana, Lana, Jelena Vukajlovic, New Media Team, Vlada, Center for Interactive Pedagogy, UNICEF, all volunteers for trying to make things better for children in Serbia. Thanks for believing in their dreams. Let’s keep it that way in 2014.

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One auction item that was always raising the most interest on our  galas and that we always had to list in our catalogue is the “match  with Novak”. That was not surprising at all to us, since he is the  founder of the NDF and a person that people most want to meet and  greet on our galas. Thanks to him we had a room full of people who  wanted to support our cause, so they were naturally ready to bid the  most for the items that included Novak. Unfortunately, this offer  comes as very limited due to Novak’s active career and busy schedule  during the year. We can only offer 1 or 2 matches per year, and  believe it or not, even those ones are quite difficult to organize,  despite Novak’s good will.

We collect auction items for several months. Many people offer us  various things they find valuable and we make the selection once we  know who will be the bidders in the room. The auction item donors are  usually art collectors, people with several properties, yachts; we  also have some holiday resorts offering a week of stay in their  hotels, jewellery brands, designers… It comes handy to know a  celebrity or two who would offer something from their personal  collection, or even offer an experience with them (e.g. “Have dinner  with…/ Play golf with…”) that is usually “once in a lifetime  experience”. Those ones are the hardest to get (since celebs don’t  have much time and offer very rarely experiences), but the ones that  raise the most money on auctions.

Reasons why people would donate an auction item for our charity,  apart from genuinely wanting to help:

1. There are many benefits for person/brand/company who donates the  item for our event. For example, by doing so they can get great  visibility – in the media, as well as among influential people who  are their potential customers. Having Novak as our team leader is  a big advantage since the media is always interested to write  about his life on and off the court. In addition, many influential  and famous people also come to support him which gives them more  reasons to write about what we do.

2. Because of good energy in the room and because it is a charity  dinner, most of the items are sold at a price higher than its  selling price. That creates a buzz in the room (and out with the  help of media) which adds to the value of the company/brand.  Imagine a watch that costs $20,000 euros being sold at $50,000.  That’s not bad at all to brag about right?

3. We usually ask our celebrity guests to come out on stage and help  us sell the item. As a result, people are more interested to buy  it and more willing to bid even over their price range. When  Karlie Kloss or Naomi Campbell give you a sexy look and ask you to  pay extra $5000 for a bracelet for the benefit of children, how  can you refuse? I couldn’t.

4. For the companies and brands it is absolutely important to  allocate annual funds for various CSR activities. Therefore it is  natural that they have interest in supporting organizations that  will also give them in return certain visibility on the market.

When you take all of these points into consideration, public auction  is a very good way to raise funds. The biggest portion of our budget  comes from these auctions, followed by the money we raise from  selling individual tickets and tables, and some portion from  sponsors. Our revenues also come from private donations, where people  just send a check or make a donation through PayPal  or  directly to our bank account.

As I’ve mentioned before, we close our auction items list just couple  of days before the event, when we know exactly who will be the  bidders in “the room”. We do that because we adjust the items to  them. Golden rule in any business, even non -profit is to sell the  customer what they want. For people to be willing to give money, we  need to offer something that has a real value for them. If we have an  art collector in the room, we will make sure to have something in the  catalogue for him. Sometimes we have to purchase certain auction  items, which is not unusual. It happens, people can’t donate all the  things for free and thus provide pure profit for the foundation. In  most cases we have bought paintings that we knew could reach high  price at the auction and exceed the cost. As I mentioned before,  Milutin is an expert on this topic and he was advising us on what  painting would be a good item for our collectors.

Here are some of the most interesting auction items that appeared on  our galas:

• The most exclusive Pro-Am Tennis Event in the World, play on Necker  Island with Novak Djokovic (sold for $180K), John McEnroe ($150K) and  Sir Richard Branson ($125K)
• Private match with the world number 1 tennis player Novak Djokovic,  sold for $120K
• 4 days with Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson on board the super yacht  Silver Angel, winner of the Yacht of the Year, 2010, sold for £370k
• Andy Warhol painting of Mick Jagger, sold for £100k
• Garrad’s diamond bracelet, sold for £65k
• A week on the Super Yacht Galaxy, which was sold twice for $320k  and $275K
• A week in the Dominican Republic’s largest private villa, sold for  $300K
• Photo shoot with Patrick Demachiler at his studio and attending a  fashion show as a special quest of Anna Wintour , sold for $170K

I hope this blog gives you answers at least to the half of your  questions regarding NDF. But if there are some more things you would  like to know, our whole team is at your disposal. Next time I would  like to focus more on our projects, as I am sure you wonder where do  we invest all this money.

If there is anything you’d like to share with me and my team, please  don’t hesitate to do so by leaving your comment below. We are always  open to learn more, and we try to share with you all we learn on our  way. We have quite high expectations for ourselves, which makes us  work hard every day. We also try to meet your expectations, and we  hope that we manage to do so. If it happens that we don’t, don’t be  too hard on us, we gave our best because we really care. Some people  don’t even try, but that’s not who we are.

We dream big. We never give up.

Lots of love,
Jelena

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