The Aspire Coronation Trust (ACT) Foundation is seeking applications for the 2021 Concession Cycle to drive sustainable impact across Africa, pushing them beyond borders; and as such, they always strive to do more.

They seek to promote broad participation/partnership with other institutions and/or donor organisations aimed at building sustainable communities and practising innovative solutions to social, economic and environmental challenges.

They believe that grant-making is a critical tool in engineering social change, and are even more inspired by the long- and short-term partnerships they make. Their strength lies in the partnerships they create and sustain through funding for programmes and activities that have great potential to change the downward trajectory of development on the African continent.

At the ACT Foundation, they have adopted a responsive approach to grant-making. By funding focussed interventions, they work on a broad spectrum of development issues grouped within their focus areas.

The Aspire Coronation Trust (ACT) Foundation is a non-profit organisation set up in 2016 to support local, national and regional non-profit organisations working to address challenges and associated vulnerabilities across the African continent.

Focus Areas

• Cheers: Its aim is to facilitate better health services for vulnerable and marginalised groups in their society.
• Environment: In a joint WHO & UNICEF report (August 2004) it was stated that around 2.4 billion people are likely to face the risk of unnecessary illness and death by the 2015 target because of poor sanitation, such as decaying or non-existent sewage systems, which will fuel the spread of diseases such as cholera and diarrhoea that kills 1 child every 21 seconds
• Entrepreneurship: The United Nations Sustainable Development Report states that the percentage of people living below the extreme poverty line halved between 2002 and 2012, from 26% to 13%. This translates into one in eight people worldwide living in extreme poverty in 2012. Poverty remains widespread in sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 40% of people lived on less than 1.90 US dollars a day in 2013.
• Leadership: They recognise that they have leadership challenges as a nation and a continent, so there is a need to build a new generation of credible, responsible and ethical leaders who will drive the continent towards effective and sustainable economic and human development, as well as peace and security.

Support Areas

• Organisational Development;
• Monitoring and Evaluation;
• Governance and Board Support;
• Impact measurement;
• Professional Development;
• Training.

Eligibility criteria

• If you are a Nigerian organisation applying for this grant, the organisation must have been registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission for at least TWO years (24 months).
• If you are an organisation within the Africa,applying for this concession, your organisation must be registered with the appropriate legal entity within your respective countries for no less than TWO years (24 months).
• You must be legally registered as a non-profit organisation (GTE/LTD). However, if you are applying as a social enterprise, the Foundation will only fund initiatives that are not for profit.
• The ACT Foundation will not fund any non-profit organisation whose official bank account name is different from the organisation's name.
• You need to show a strong governance structure. Please note that the details of the board of directors should be reflected in the company's registration documents. If not, please update.
• You will be required to show evidence of other sources of funding.
• You must submit an audited financial report for a maximum of two years before applying for funds.
• The organisation must show a track record of past projects and work carried out within the Act Foundation's focus area of Health, Entrepreneurship, Leadership and the Environment.
• The proposed projects/programmes must have a maximum life cycle of 12 months, i.e. they must be carried out and completed within 6 to 12 months.
• The applying organisation is required to have a minimum staff strength of 3 part-time/full-time paid individuals.
• The organisation must be open to an independent audit of the grants disbursed by the Foundation.
• Be a non-profit/non-governmental organisation registered under the relevant laws of the country where you are implementing;
• To be directly responsible for the development and management of the project, i.e. not to act as an intermediary;
• Programme/initiative to be implemented within Africa;
• The programme must be innovative and impact-oriented;

For more information, visit http://actrustfoundation.org/