Deadline6 December 2022
AmplifyChange's Strengthening grant is now open to support advocacy projects that seek to engage and contribute to bringing about change in one or more of its priority areas. This grant is aimed at small and medium-sized civil society organisations in the Global South.
AmplifyChange priority areas
They support defence groups and activists working in these five priority areas:
- Eliminating gender-based violence
- Removing barriers to safe abortion
- Challenging stigma and discrimination
- Improving the sexual health of young people
- Increasing access to reproductive health
Financing Information
- Grants up to: £200,000
- The duration of a Booster Grant is between 24 and 36 months.
- Up to 40% from an Empowerment Grant can be used to support organisational development costs and increase organisational effectiveness.
What are they looking for?
- As a challenge fund, they are counting on you to propose your ideas for a successful defence to strengthen SRHR.
- This call for Strengthening grants focuses on supporting advocacy and organisational strengthening campaigns within civil society organisations that seek to bring about positive change in one of AmplifyChange's priority themes or an intersection or combination of themes:
- Eliminate gender-based violence, including sexual violence, female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and child marriage
- Increasing safe abortion options
- Challenging stigma and discrimination, attitudes and laws that undermine human rights, including on the basis of the gender or sexual orientation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) individuals.
- Improving the sexual health of young people and girls, including comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), promoting menstrual health and providing appropriate services for young people
- Increasing access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services for poor, vulnerable and marginalised people
- AmplifyChange is committed to supporting pleasure-inclusive sexual health and sex positivity within SRHR. They endorse the Pleasure Principles, which collated evidence and best practice from pleasure-based sexual health interventions and created a set of principles to follow for effective implementation. They are happy to receive applications from organisations wishing to include inclusive, pleasure-based approaches in their projects, addressing one or more of their five priority themes.
- Applicants need to think strategically about their local movements and define a role that will make the most effective contribution to change. Applications should respond to one or more of your outcome areas in your Theory of Change:
- Raising individual awareness of SRHR as human rights
- Improving access to SRHR resources, information and services
- Transforming social norms
- Changing policies and laws
- Building stronger and more inclusive movements for SRHR
- AmplifyChange funds the defence. They recognise that direct service delivery can have an immediate impact on SRHR, but advise careful consideration of applications focusing on service delivery activities. They are focussed on achieving long-term sustainable gains. Therefore, all service delivery applications will be assessed for their ability to contribute to advocacy and movement building for sustainable gains for SRHR.
Eligibility criteria
- Only civil society organisations from the Global South can apply. Your organisation must be registered and implementing a project in one of AmplifyChange's eligible countries. Applicants must also be small to medium-sized organisations with an average annual expenditure over the last two years of less than £500,000 per year. All applicants must have a bank account.
- They recognise the broad scope of civil society and the wide range of organisations, actors and coalitions it encompasses.
- Civil Society Organisations can include:
- International Non-Governmental Organisations based in the Global North and UN agencies are not eligible to lead a Strengthening Grant proposal.
Top tips for writing a proposal
Its independent Technical Review Panel (TRP) helps the AmplifyChange team screen applications to help them decide which groups to fund.
The panel is a diverse group of public health professionals, consultants and academics - all with experience in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights.
The Technical Review Panel evaluates the applications and classifies them based on the following criteria:
- Relevance of the project
- Organisational capacity
- Sustainability and costs
- Risk
AmplifyChange asked the panel to share their advice on how to write a successful application and the kind of information they look for in a proposal. Here, they present their top 10 tips:
- CLARITY IS IMPORTANT: Be clear about the context in which you are working and the problem you are trying to solve
- HAVE A CATCHY TITLE: Make your app stand out
- BE REALISTIC: Show that you are original and passionate about your project, but make sure it is realisable
- BE LOCALISEDMake sure that the community you are trying to serve is reflected in your board and staff. Show who you've been talking to in your sector and how you interact with the people you're trying to help.
- BE AUTHENTIC: Don't exaggerate your skills or experience
- DON'T USE JARGON: Write in simple terms and use clear language
- BE CONSISTENT: Work on all aspects of your project, including the narrative, work plan, budget and monitoring and evaluation structure.
- BE INNOVATIVE: Don't be afraid to try something new and don't be afraid to fail. If you don't succeed the first time, try again!
- SHOW UNDERSTANDING: Make sure you have a solid understanding of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights before you start writing your application
- SHOW YOUR ADDED VALUEDemonstrate how your organisation will bring change and add value to the movement. Be aware of other actors and coalitions working on your SRHR topic and avoid duplicating what is already happening.
Want to know more? Watch the video below and download the PDF guide to see his advice.
For more information, visit https://amplifychange.org/grant_type/strengthening/
