UK Aid Direct Funding Rounds open for Community Partnership Grants and Impact Grants

Deadline: 17 April 2019

The UK Department for International Development (DFID) is accepting applications for UK Aid Direct’s Community Partnership Grants and Impact Grants. The UK Aid Direct was established in 2014 as a successor to the Global Poverty Action Fund (GPAF), which was created in 2010.

The aim of UK Aid Direct is to fund small- and medium-sized national and international civil society organisations (CSOs) to reduce poverty and work towards achieving the Global Goals. Specifically, UK Aid Direct funding reaches the most marginalised and vulnerable populations, supporting the DFID agenda to ‘leave no one behind’.

This agenda can be achieved through funding projects that encompass service delivery, economic empowerment, strengthening accountability or generating social change. As a flexible fund, UK Aid Direct is designed to be an adaptive and demand-led fund that responds to DFID priorities of:

• strengthening global peace,
• security and governance
• strengthening resilience and response to crisis
• promoting global prosperity
• tackling extreme poverty and helping the world’s most vulnerable
• delivering value for money

UK Aid Direct Community Partnership Grant Funding

Grant Size

Applicants can apply for up funding for up to £250,000 per grant.

Duration

UK Aid Direct Community Partnership grants can be used to fund new, time-limited projects of up to 36 months (3 years) duration.

Eligibility Criteria

• Community Partnership grants are open to applications from small, not-for-profit organisations that are:
  • registered in the UK
  • in one of the lowest 50 countries (mentioned below) in the UN Human Development Index (HDI) or
  • in a country considered by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) to be of high or moderate fragility
• To be considered as registered in the UK, applicant’s organisation must:
  • have its own legal identity in the UK, and be registered with Companies House and/or The Charity Commission
  • have significant ongoing operations based in the UK related to the oversight and management of the UK Aid Direct grant and
  • be able to demonstrate significant autonomy. If their organisation is part of a larger international family, UK Aid Direct will expect applicants to demonstrate autonomy; their organisation must have its own UK specific constitution and an independent board of trustees, i.e. the board must be locally appointed and be free and able to make independent decisions on strategic and operational issues.The status of the organisation may be verified during due diligence.
• The organisation must have an average income of less than £1,000,000 per annum for the past 3 years, as shown in approved organisational accounts. Applicants may be asked to provide relevant documentation as evidence.
• New organisations with fewer than 3 years of accounts may also apply and in such cases, average annual income will be calculated based on the organisation’s length of operation.

How to Apply

• Applying for a Community Partnership grant is a 2-stage process:
  • the submission of a concept note
  • a full application (if an organisation is successful at the concept note stage)
• All applications must be submitted online. Applications sent via email or post will not be accepted.

Eligible Countries: Afghanistan, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Burundi, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo (Democratic Republic of the), Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt (Arab Republic of), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Iraq, Kenya, Kyrgyz Republic, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, The Occupied Palestinian Territories, Papua New, Guinea, Rwanda, Somalia, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Tanzania (United Republic of), Togo, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Uganda, Venezuela (República Bolivariana de), Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe, United Kingdom.

UK Aid Direct Impact Grants

Grant size

• Applicants can apply for funding of between £250,001 and £4,000,000 per application.
• Applicant organisations must have an average annual income of less than £10,000,000 for the past 3 years (as shown in approved organisational accounts).

Duration

• From between 3 to 5 years, proposals for 3+ years must be supported by a compelling case for longer duration.
• UK Aid Direct Impact grants can be used to fund new, time-limited projects of up to 60-month (5 years) duration. Additional components of on-going programmes must be clearly identifiable as discrete projects, with a well-defined project outcome, a clear, time-limited schedule for delivery, and a distinct budget.

Eligibility Criteria

• Impact grants are open to applications from medium-sized, non-governmental organisations that are registered as a not-for-profit organisation in the UK, in one of the lowest 50 countries in the UN Human Development Index (HDI) or in one of the countries that DFID considers to be of high or moderate fragility.
• Consortium applications
  • For the purpose of the UK Aid Direct programme, DFID defines consortium applications as those submitted by formal consortia only, i.e. where 2 or more organisations come together to create a new, formally constituted organisation, with its own organisational accounts.
  • Informal consortia, i.e. where 2 or more organisations work together on a specific project or initiative only, will be considered as partnerships, as defined in the Partnerships and Consortiums page.
  • All formal consortium members must meet the UK Aid Direct Impact grant applicant organisation eligibility criteria.
  • To be eligible:
    • the average annual income of each consortium member organisation must be less than £10,000,000
    • the total combined income of consortium members may exceed £10,000,000
    • if registered as a separate legal entity, the average annual income of the consortium must be less than £10,000,000

How to Apply

• Applying for an Impact grant is a 2-staged process:
  • the submission of a concept note
  • a full application (if an organisation is successful)
• All applications must be submitted online. Applications sent via email or post will not be accepted.

Eligible Countries: Afghanistan, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Burundi, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo (Democratic Republic of the), Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt (Arab Republic of), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Iraq, Kenya, Kyrgyz Republic, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, The Occupied Palestinian Territories, Papua New, Guinea, Rwanda, Somalia, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Tanzania (United Republic of), Togo, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Uganda, Venezuela (República Bolivariana de), Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe, United Kingdom.

About UK Aid direct

Committed to achieve Global Goals the UK Aid Direct was created in 2014 as a successor to the Global Poverty Action Fund (GPAF) and is funded by the UK’s Department for International (DFID).

About the funding opportunity

There are two categories of the funding opportunity namely community partnership and impact grants.

1. Community partnership: The grant size is up to £250,000 for small not for profit organizations which are registered in UK or in one of the lowest 50 countries in the UN HDI or in a country DFID considers to be of high or moderate fragility and with an average income of less than £1,000,000 per annum for the past 3 years.
2. Impact grants: The range of the grant is between £250,001 and £4,000,000 for non-government organizations registered in the UK or in one of the lowest 50 countries in the UN HDI or in a country DFID considers to be of high or moderate fragility and with an average income of less than £10,000,000 per annum for the past 3 years.

Applications are invited from small and medium-sized national and international civil society organizations (CSOs) which have reach to the most marginalized and vulnerable populations, supporting the DFID agenda “leave no one behind”

The opportunity released, as per the previous round funding the invited proposals should demonstrate on how the designed intervention will cover the agendas mentioned in the Global Goals and secondary how the project will tackle the problem of Urban Poverty. These two are the priority areas on which lines the grant could be sought from the UK Aid direct.

The Global Goals

In the year 2015 world leaders gathered together and enlisted 17 goals to make the world a better place by 2030. These goals were meant to specially focus on ending poverty, stop climate change and fight inequality.

1. No Poverty
2. Zero hunger
3. Good Health and well being
4. Quality education
5. Gender quality
6. Clean Water and Sanitation
7. Affordable and Clean Energy
8. Decent work and Economy Growth
9. Industry Innovation and Infrastructure
10. Reduced Inequalities
11. Sustainable Cities and Communities
12. Responsible consumption and production
13. Climate action
14. Life below water
15. Peace, Justice and strong institutions
16. Life and land (Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification,   and halt and reverse land degradation, and halt biodiversity loss)
17. Partnership for the goals.

The viciousness of Urban Poverty and why social programs, need to address the situation.

Urban Poverty is not a new notion in today’s time, as with the older belief that the poverty lives only in rural is now proven totally wrong and on the contrary rising slums right in the middle of the city is an example of urban poverty where it is estimated that in the world a billion people are forced to live in informal housing settlements.

The problem statement is not just limited to housing crisis but the people living in these settlements have issues related to low education, less income generation skills and already poor family background adds up to the problem. It is been already been researched that people migrating from their native place may find better opportunities in urban areas while others who have low skills pertaining to income generation ends up in the city slums. These people are often left behind and with such critical poor situation; they struggle to meet the ends. It is also lacking in the governments’ part that they don’t have adequate policies to ensure better life for the people who are left behind and who are struggling to even get a regular wage job.

These are also desperate times where the situation needs to be aggressively addressed as the problem is more complex just then dealing with simple issue of poverty. The problems arising due to urban poverty is crime, drug abuse, sex related assaults, child abuse and child labor, limited access to health and education, violent environment, informal housing arrangements, no social security at all and etc. In order to curb the situation and take nessacary actions, the governments must form coalitions with civil societies to take up the issue with more realistic and scientific based approach.

How the applications are scrutinized by the UK Aid Direct?

The applications should be received in the form of concept notes for the first stage of the review process, post that a full application should be completed and submitted online. The full proposals are then been assessed by the team of panel comprised of individual experts in the field and familiar with the works of the DFID.

If we analyze the past 2017 data of the number of application selected for the grant were near about 40 to 50 out of estimated 591 eligible applications. This means that a strong concept should be developed to avoid rejection.

Application Analysis of funding for Community partnership and Impact Grants

The percentage got selected is about only 8% of the total eligible application which means that it’s a tough bet.

Possible reasons for the rejection of the application are

1. Poor project design
2. Sustainability was lacking in the design of the project
3. Use of data was unrealistic (clear number of beneficiaries should be mentioned instead of rough estimate)
4. Not enough significant evidence based approach.
5. Lenient approach to capacity building in the project design. 

If you want to apply for the Community partnership and Impact Grants then you need to have a powerful proposal on the lines mentioned below.

5. Context: The context of the target area should be evidence based and have clear figures regarding the beneficiaries of the project. Contextual analysis along with the use of sufficient evidence is recommended.
6. Stakeholders Analysis: Part of every strong proposal is the stakeholders’ analysis and it should be taken damn seriously. At the same time, the involvement of the stakeholders likes the beneficiaries, government, religious leaders and even influential individual should be considered in a proposal development. It is because they are the ones who will identify barriers to be addressed by the project. Co-ownership of the project by the potential beneficiaries will add strength to the project indicators.
7. Monitoring and Evaluation: In order to track the progress of a project you need to have some methods that will do the monitoring and evaluation of the project. While designing your project include triangulation activities to verify data. Include a decent management information system (MIS) for reporting. You must also use pre-existing technology for data management. Use existing data to comprise your baseline data and for the purpose of evaluation, consider adding third party evaluation in your log-frame with timeline.
8. Result Section: This comprises the outcome of the project which are desired change expected after the completion of the project. These outcomes should consider the following points.
9. Are the expected outcomes are realistic in the given target population.
10. Does the outcome address the vulnerable population; change is seen in terms of gender equity and empowerment issues.
    1. 1. has the project addressed value for money (Economy, efficiency, effectiveness and equity)
       2. Does the designed indicator have both qualitative and quantitative measures?
11. Theory of change: Theory of change defines long term goals and then maps backward to identify necessary preconditions. In strong proposal evidence based theory of change is clearly mentioned with a logical flow. The theory of change should also answer the why, who, how and what of the project.
12. Measuring the change: There should be some applicable method to measure change that has occurred due to implementation of the project. For example, if the project provides capacity building of the beneficiaries then there should be a method in proposal to identify the knowledge or up gradation in the skills of the participants. One way to do that is to conduct a pre-test and post-test paper while conducting training session. These should also be part of the indicators of the proposal.
13. Capacity Building: We recommend that you should include a Training Needs Assessment (TNA) for both primary and secondary beneficiary of the project before the development of the project proposal. This will give you a clear direction on capacity building needs of the beneficiaries, government, partners and other stakeholders.
14. Gender and diversity: The role of gender in any philanthropy project is universal so they are considered in every aspect of the change intended in a program. One should consider multi facets of gender like the caste system, disability, economy and culture. Identification of perceptions and gender based issues should be addressed by the project.
15. Sustainability: Not all projects will last a life time of the beneficiaries, at some point of time the support of the project shall be removed, what will happen then, should be answered in terms of sustainability. Considering the fact that the program will wind up someday, sufficient advocacy should be done with the local government so that few activities might sustain on their own like revolving funds for health camps, free schools supported by government, free counselling centre etc. These activities should also be the active part of the project implementation.
16. Value for money: In the social development business every penny counts, the value for money (vfm) should be seriously taken. Economy analysis of unit costs, inputs and outputs should be measured time to time in the program. Best quality is expected in low prices, which means that at a minimum cost, best services are provided by the project. There should be a mechanism to track this with a dedicated timeline on how often.
17. Financial Section: Considering the context does the proposed activities match up to the allocated budget. Is there a mitigation action in place to tackle wide range of risks involved? Overall budget planning should be cost effective and value for money.
18. Risk Involved: The proposal should identify all kinds of risks and threats involved in the project proposal with a strategic risk management strategy. One should develop an action plan on how to tackle the risks should they occur during the implementation of the project. Also ensure a way to test and review the risks involved.

For more information about Community Partnership Grants, visit here.

For more information about Impact Grants, visit here.