Deadline: 16-Nov-20
The INSPIRES consortium is seeking applications from local civil society organizations for a capacity building process to strengthen their resiliency in the face of potential impacts of growing restrictions on civic space.
This is an opportunity for local civil society organizations and is a part of a larger initiative under the USAID-funded Enabling and Protecting Civic Spaces (EPCS) – Illuminating New Solutions and Programmatic Innovations for Resilient Spaces or INSPIRES activity.
What is The Resiliency+ Framework and Process?
The Resiliency+ Framework and Process was born out of the need for a new organizational model. The first of its kind, the Framework provides a nuanced understanding of how civil society organizations and actors operate, adapt, and thrive in response to multi-faceted and multi-dimensional changes to sociopolitical-economic dynamics.
Drawing upon several studies and reports, as well as peer interviews and reputable indices developed by peer organizations, the Resiliency+ Process helps CSOs to identify the external threats and internal vulnerabilities impeding them from implementing resilient operations. Using this information, the Resiliency+ Processthen proposes a menu of strategies, tactics, tools, and peer-to-peer assistance to help CSOs achieve the seven key drivers needed to adapt quickly in the face of closing civic space.
EPCS INSPIRES seeks to increase knowledge and capacity to respond to growing restrictions on democratic freedoms of association, assembly, and expression. With civic space shifting rapidly around the globe, faster and more potent interventions are critical for bolstering local civil societies.
Through this process, the consortium expects to identify which interventions and delivery mechanisms are most effective under specific circumstances in order to apply the lessons to a critical mass of CSOs and networks globally, resulting in improved resilience to closing space threats on a sectoral level.
Goal
- The Resiliency+ Process will take selected organizations through a structured assessment and capacity building process to increase their organizational resilience over a period of 12 months.
- Participating organizations will have a better understanding of their internal organizational vulnerabilities and will be able to identify and mitigate potential external threats impeding growth, endangering staff and reducing sustainability.
- Selected organizations will be paired with a Resiliency Coaching team who will provide ongoing accompaniment.
Funding Information
- Beyond selection for this support, organizations will also be eligible to apply separately for flexible response grants of up to $10,000 through the INSPIRES initiative to further enhance specific interventions provided.
Eligibility Criteria
- Requirements: Organizations in Ecuador, Georgia, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, and Serbia will be considered for the Resiliency+ process. To be eligible for consideration, an organization must have at least four years of operational experience, since the Resiliency+ Process provides tailored resiliency support and assumes a certain level of general organizational development. Additionally, it is vital for each applicant organization to commit to dedicating staff time to this accompaniment process. The R+ approach involves a small team of staff from different functional teams from your organization who will participate in the assessment and capacity-strengthening activities over a period of 12 months.
- Selected organizations must demonstrate civic space factors affecting their daily work, such as legal environment restrictions, financial constraints, negative narratives about civil society, and fragmentation of civil society. A diversity of organizations will be considered, including but not limited to rural/urban, male/female-led, and small/large. Organisations of various types and thematic focus are encouraged to apply.
The Resiliency+ Process
- Phase One: Understand the ecosystem: Drawing upon systems mapping and political economy analysis, Resiliency Coaches will guide organizations through the analysis of their “civic space ecosystem” to better understand the context in which they operate, as well as the behaviours and relationships that emerge and interact among various factors and actors that shape the way the context is structured.
- Phase Two: Assessing organizational resiliency CSOs: selected via this solicitation will utilize a self-diagnostic tool devised specifically for this process called the Resilient Organization in Changing Civic Space (ROCCS) Assessment, which analyzes the presence of changing space threats and capacities of the organization.
- Phase Three: Develop a Resiliency+ Roadmap: Using the analysis, CSOs will be guided through a process to devise a customized intervention using the Resiliency+ Matrix, which is comprised of strategies, tools, tactics and approaches that correlate to different threat and resiliency areas, and are intended to increase CSO resiliency.
- Phase Four: Learn & adapt to explore new routes along the way: Throughout the implementation of the customized intervention, organizations will pause and reflect at various points in the process to determine if the planned roadmap is still the most suitable for increasing resiliency based on local conditions, and if not, change direction.
For more information, visit https://www.inspiresconsortium.org/solicitation
