Partnership and synergy of civil society, public institutions and the business sector is the Belgrade Open School important program area of ​​engagement. For many years now, the Belgrade Open School has supported civil society in establishing strategic cooperation with the business and public sectors. Creating such partnerships is a challenging process, especially for civil society organizations that often have limited funds and knowledge on how to establish contact and achieve long-term cooperation with the business sector.

Striving to share our own experience and encourage all actors to be more involved, on July 12, 2022, the Belgrade Open School organized a workshop How to achieve stable and long-term cooperation between the civil and business sectors with the aim to present potentials of such cooperation and share our own experience, with a special focus to overcome challenges. We want to encourage as many organizations and companies as possible to take active steps and achieve sustainable cooperation. We assessed that the design thinking methodology is most suitable to initiate the first contact and to start cooperation; therefore the lecturer was Milovan Dekić, a consultant who was the first to introduce the design thinking concept into our business culture. The notions such as cooperation, negotiation and agreement have been presented to participants through the new methodology, in an interesting and innovative way.

Their ideas and concepts were elaborated and presented by the employees of thr Hulk Bank, Bambi concern, IKEA Regional Center, Palladio Group, private foreign language school Let's Go, consultant Marija Grujić Bepa, representatives of the organizations Užice Center for Child's Rights, MDRI S, Center Zvezda, European Library Bor, magazine “Lice ulice”, youth organization New Renaissance, the Union of High School Students of Serbia and the Employers` Union of Serbia.