The Foundation for Local Government Reform is an independent professional resource centre, whose mission is to support local democracy and promote effective, partnership-based local development, based on democratic values, social inclusion and prosperity.

FLGR was established in May 1995 as a non-governmental organization by a group of mayors. The Governing body of FLGR consists of 5 members and the teal – of 9 experienced professionals.

For 15 years of existence the Foundation has gained wide recognition at national level. Currently it has a proven record of successfully implemented projects and programs contributing to the democratization of local government in Bulgaria and enhancement of public awareness on local government issues. During the years the organization has established a countrywide network of local professionals, who join our projects relevant to their area of expertise on a part-time basis.

FLGR headquarters are based in Sofia and the regional office of FLGR - in Smolyan to serve this south-west mountainous area.

FLGR professional experience and support to introduction of structural reforms in local governance, has won us a remarkable reputation among the other transitional countries. Thus we have been invited to assist local development in Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro and Kaliningrad Oblast through organizing topical study tours and sharing of expertise.

The main spheres of expertise of FLGR are:

• Training - To date FLGR has delivered more than 500 seminars with overall 10 000 participants in strengthening the capacity of Bulgarian Local Governments.
• Participatory Local Governance – FLGR has worked for 6 years on Community Forum Programme in 30 municipalities throughout the country, with the objective to consolidate citizen’s participation and mobilise municipalities` development resources and initiatives in order to promote a more pluralistic vision and a multi-dimensional strategy for local development.
• Good Governance and Integrity – FLGR has worked for several years now on revision and improvement the performance of the local administrations and leaderships in terms of internal administrative procedures and rules based on recommendations from the citizens and local businesses and within the context of observing the good governance principles.
• Better Administrative Services - Since October 2001 FLGR has been implementing a programme for improving services to citizens by establishing municipal customer service centres at local level, and integrated administrative services at regional level; FLGR provided technical assistance to municipalities for setting up and running Centres, training of the staff, preparation of information kits and IT consultations, and to date has assisted more than 100 municipalities.
• Local Economic Development – FLGR has assisted for 10 years Bulgarian municipalities in the process of policy-formulation and implementation; the preparation of the municipal long-term strategic economic planning documents, promotion materials, networking; provision of international expertise to the Bulgarian municipalities.
• Innovative Practices – for 12 years FLGR has gathered and disseminated good practices of Bulgarian and European municipalities and their socio-economic partners; the online data base includes more than 1000 practices.
• Grant management - In the period 2008 – 2011 FLGR administers Bulgarian NGO Fund within the Financial Mechanism of EEA (2.06 mln Euro).