Deadline: 19 December 2019
The East-West Management Institute’s (EWMI) Advancing CSO Capacities and Engaging Society for Sustainability (ACCESS) project invites Georgian Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), particularly those from the regions, to submit concept papers to the Citizen Outreach Grant (COGs) program.
The COG program enables and supports Georgian CSOs and civic movements to:
- Target the most pressing problems faced by local communities and
- Directly engage citizens in resolving these problems.
The program focuses on results in terms of citizen empowerment to address the key issues facing Georgia. It also prioritizes the initiatives that:
- Enable and support partnerships between formal (i.e. registered CSOs) and informal (citizen groups, civic activists, social movements) civil society
- Enable and support inter-sectoral cooperation (i.e. CSO sector, the private sector, academia, media, the arts community, etc.)
- Seize the election-year opportunity to influence the pre-election agenda, increase citizen engagement in electoral processes, and shape the issues to be address in electoral debates and
- Engage CSOs in seeking alternative sources of funding, such as crowdfunding, business partnerships/contributions, and donations.
Under this RfCP, EWMI ACCESS invites CSOs to submit brief (i.e. up to 1,500 words) concept papers proposing proven or innovative approaches to implementing civic campaigns on a broad range of priority issues as identified by their constituents. The interested CSOs can propose EITHER:
- Capitalizing on their most successful initiatives (past or ongoing) and using the grant funds to continue implementing these initiatives or expand them. Although, in general, EWMI ACCESS encourages and supports innovation and creative thinking, if an organization proposes a proven strategy for achieving its objective(s), EWMI ACCESS will support it to augment its successful strategy or replicate it, as appropriate. The concept paper on the tested strategy must briefly describe the proposed initiative, explain what made it successful, and outline a strategy for building off it to achieve greater/more sustainable results.
- Testing outout-of-box civic initiatives through partnering with other groups, both formal and informal, individual civic activists, and professionals. As old-school methods of communicating with citizens often fail to effectively attract them, it is important to develop and test out innovative ways to reach out to and engage local communities, including the hard-to-reach ones. EWMI ACCESS, therefore, encourages CSOs to submit the concept papers that propose developing and implementing out-of-box, higher-risk, but also higher-impact strategies. Such concept papers must briefly describe the problem the organization aims to focus on and propose an innovative approach to address it.
Grant Information
EWMI ACCESS will award up to 6 grants under this RfCP. The maximum grant award for each project will be $20,000 USD and the maximum grant period will be 12 months. EWMI ACCESS reserves the right to fund any or none of the applications submitted.
Eligibility Criteria
- Applicant organizations must meet the following criteria:
- Be a Georgian, non-governmental, non-profit organization;
- Operate as an independent, non-politically affiliated organization;
- Have at least one year of operational experience. As a rule, EWMI ACCESS will not provide “start-up” funding, although EWMI ACCESS may make an exception if sufficient evidence is presented to show that the organization’s leadership has adequate prior experience and the organization is capable of filling a niche that has been underserved in the past;
- Have a transparent and credible system of bookkeeping. If such a system is not in place, the grantee must work closely with the EWMI ACCESS office to ensure that accurate financial management and transparent bookkeeping systems are developed;
- Must not be a debtor and must have canceled any debt to the state or arranged for debt collection prior to receiving the first disbursement of EWMI ACCESS grant funds.
- Civil servants, political appointees, members of the current parliament, staff of public broadcasting companies, and/or leaders of political parties cannot participate in a grant project as a director or as a grant-remunerated participant.
For more information, visit http://ewmi-access.org/citizen-outreach-grant-cog-program-request-for-concept-papers/