Cultural Survival’s Keepers of the Earth Fund to Support Grassroots Indigenous-Led Development Projects

Deadline: 7 June 2019

Cultural Survival has announced the Keepers of the Earth Fund (KOEF) Call for Project Concepts. The KOEF is a small grants fund that supports Indigenous values-based community development.

KOEF supports emerging and grassroots Indigenous-led development projects and is often the first funding source for Indigenous organizations and projects.

Grants can support projects focused on a vast array of development activities. Of particular interest are projects focused on the following topics and their intersections: Free, Prior, Informed Consent, self-governance, the rights of leadership of Indigenous women, economic sovereignty, land rights, environmental and biodiversity protection, Indigenous language and knowledge retention, movement-building, equitable distribution of resources, and Indigenous participation in international, national, regional and local spaces.

Applications will be viewed with an eye toward innovation, Indigenous values woven into the design of the project, and projects addressing real-time development needs. The connection between Indigenous values and the proposed project should be clearly articulated.

Grant Information

Grant amounts may range between $500 and $5,000 USD.

Geographic Focus

Keepers of the Earth Fund is open to receive projects from any country where there is a presence of Indigenous communities; however, they will give slight preference to:

The Americas
Nepal & Northern India
Botswana, Namibia & South Africa

Criteria

Be Indigenous-led
Be an Indigenous organization, non-profit grassroots group, traditional Indigenous government, or broad-based cooperative with collective ownership and decision making.
Have an annual organizational budget of less than $150,000 USD / year
Have a bank account in the name of the organization or have an existing written agreement with a fiscal sponsor.

What they do not Fund: