Deadline: 7 January, 2019
The Foundation offers grants of up to £200,000 over four years in support of innovative project ideas and approaches that seek to strengthen the ability of civic voices to engage with governments and that have the potential to improve governance and development outcomes through their active participation.
The Foundation believes in the power of stories and storytelling for social change and will award grants for creative approaches that have the potential to influence public discourse.
The selection process is highly competitive and selected projects will have been designed to undertake work that has the potential to lead to one or more of the outcomes in the Foundation’s strategic logic model.
The Foundation’s programme teams are all involved in shaping the focus of the call for proposals. An internal review process, including long-listing by the Grants team followed by a short listing process involving all programme teams, prepares a final list of applications that is then submitted to the Grants Committee. Final decisions on which projects to support are made by the member states represented on the Foundation’s Grants Committee.
Eligibility
To be eligible for a grant, the following criteria must be met:
1. The applicant and, when applicable, partner(s) are registered not for profit civil
society organisations (CSOs).
2. The applicant and, when applicable, partner(s) must be based in a
Commonwealth Foundation member country and the project should take place
in an eligible Commonwealth Foundation member country. A list of countries
eligible under this call is available at Annex 1.
3. The application is for funding for a maximum of £50,000 per annum
4. The applicant is applying for funding for a maximum of four years
5. The applicant does not have an existing grant from the Commonwealth
Foundation at the time the application window is open.
6. The average of the applicant’s total income over the last two years is less than
£3m
7. The project must address one or both Commonwealth Foundation’s outcomes
8. The applicant will provide the following documents as part of the application:
• a completed logic model using the Commonwealth Foundation template
• a copy of the organisation’s registration certificate1 (the official registration
document provided by the relevant authorities in the country concerned)
• a copy of the organisation’s most recent audited accounts (it must include
both the accounts and the opinion of the external auditor who has certified
them; it should not be older than December 2016)
• a copy of the registration certificate2 for all partner organisations
The grants
They are interested in supporting projects that strengthen civic voice so that it:
• Is more effective in holding governance institutions to account
• Enhances involvement in policy processes
• Shapes public discourse
Your project should address one or both of the following outcomes and may include
the use of creative expression to achieve project aims:
1. Stronger civic voices engaging in policy processes to hold government to
account:
Your project will strengthen the capacity of civic voices in contributing to:
• monitoring government commitments and action
• supporting the implementation of the sustainable development goals or
other international agreements, and related local and national policy
agendas
• Advocating policy priorities to government that address gender and other
power imbalances, disparities and discrimination
• Strengthening participatory methods of engaging in regional, national and
local governance processes Raising awareness and advocating for specific policy issues
2. Public discourse more reflective of less-heard voices
• Your project will support less heard voices to contribute to public
discourse on development issues
• Your project will support less heard voices to access policy spaces and/or
platforms with the potential to amplify voices and influence public
discourse
Monitoring and reporting requirements
1. Grantees will be required to develop a performance framework and a
monitoring plan for the project
2. Grantees are required to provide reports on project progress providing
us with interim narrative project reports, an end of project report and
corresponding financial reports. Reporting deadlines are dependent on
the length of the grant awarded and will be set once a grant is
awarded.
Application deadline is 7 January, 2018.
For more information and to apply, click here.
