Deadline: 6 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 to medium civil society organisations from the Global South.
AmplifyChange’s Priority Areas
They support advocacy and activist groups working on these five priority areas:
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- Eliminating gender-based violence
- Removing barriers to safe abortion
- Challenging stigma and discrimination
- Improving sexual health of young people
- Increasing access to reproductive health
Funding Information
- Grants Upto: up to £200,000
- The duration of a Strengthening Grant is 24 to 36 months.
- Up to 40% of a Strengthening Grant can be used to support the costs of organisational development and boosting organisational effectiveness.
What are they looking for?
- As a challenge fund they rely on you to propose your ideas for successful advocacy to strengthen SRHR.
- This Strengthening grant call focuses on supporting advocacy campaigns and organisational strengthening within civil society organisations seeking to bring about positive change in one of the AmplifyChange priority themes or an intersection or combination of themes:
- Eliminating gender-based violence, including sexual violence, female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and child marriage
- Increasing safe abortion choices
- Challenging stigma and discrimination, attitudes and laws that undermine human rights, including based on gender or sexual orientation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) individuals
- Improving sexual health of young people and girls, including comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), promoting menstrual health and youth-friendly service delivery
- 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 are endorsers of The Pleasure Principles, which have taken 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 who wish to include pleasure-inclusive and pleasure-based approaches to 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 must respond to one or more of their outcome areas in their Theory of Change:
- Increasing individual awareness of SRHR as human rights
- Improving access to SRHR resources, information & services
- Transforming social norms
- Changing policies & laws
- Building stronger, more inclusive movements for SRHR
- AmplifyChange funds advocacy. They appreciate that direct service provision can make an immediate impact to SRHR but they advise careful consideration of applications focusing on service delivery activities. They are focused on achieving long-term, sustainable gains. Therefore, all service delivery applications will be appraised by their ability to contribute to advocacy and movement building for sustainable gains to SRHR.
Eligibility Criteria
- Only civil society organisations from the Global South are eligible to apply. Your organisation must be registered and implementing a project in one of AmplifyChange eligible countries. Applicants must also be small to medium sized organisations with an average annual expenditure over the past two years of less than £500,000 per year. All applicants need to 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:
- Community groups
- Youth Groups
- Non-governmental organisations
- Indigenous groups
- Charitable organisations
- Faith-based organisations
- Research institutes
- Social enterprise groups
- Public-private partnerships
- Communications and media groups
- Professional associations
- 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
Their independent Technical Review Panel (TRP) assist the AmplifyChange team with the screening of applications to help them decide which groups to fund.
The panel is a diverse group of public health professionals, consultants and academics – all with expertise in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights.
The Technical Review Panel assess applications and score them based on the following criteria:
- Relevance of the project
- Organisational capacity
- Sustainability and costs
- Risk
AmplifyChange asked the panel to share their adivce on how to write a sucessful application and the type of information they look for in a proposal. Here, they present their 10 top tips:
- CLARITY IS IMPORTANT: Be clear about the context you are working in and the problem you are trying to solve
- HAVE AN EYECATCHING TITLE: Make your application stand out
- BE REALISTIC: Show that you are original and passionate about your project but make sure that it is achievable
- BE LOCALISED: Ensure the community you are trying to serve is reflected in your board and team. Show who you have talked to in your sector and how you interact with the people you plan to help
- BE AUTHENTIC: Don’t exaggerate your capacities 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 framework
- BE INNOVATIVE: Don’t be afraid to try something new and don’t be afraid to fail. If at first you don’t succeed, try again!
- SHOW UNDERSTANDING: Ensure you have a solid understanding of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights before you start writing your application
- SHOW YOUR ADDED VALUE: Demonstrate how your organisation will bring about 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 going on
Want to find out more? Watch the video below and download the PDF guide to see their advice.
For more information, visit https://amplifychange.org/grant_type/strengthening/