Deadline: 10-Jan-24
If your organization is based in Southeast Asia, you use legal empowerment strategies to pursue land and environmental justice and your work centers on women, youth, or disabled people, please apply now.
The Legal Empowerment Fund (LEF) offers long-term core funding to grassroots activists and organizations who are supporting their communities to tackle systemic injustices and advocate for expanded protections under the law.
The Legal Empowerment Fund (LEF) is a 10-year, multimillion-dollar effort at the Fund for Global Human Rights to give frontline activists and grassroots groups the support they need to close the global justice gap. The LEF was created with the support of a constellation of funders and allies—including the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Namati, the International Development and Research Centre, and Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies—with the goal of strengthening grassroots justice groups to help communities access the law and secure justice.
The Fund for Global Human Rights (the Fund) is a public foundation that has raised and disbursed more than $100 million in grants to frontline human rights groups since it was founded in 2002. The Fund is an intersectional grassroots funder with program staff embedded in activist communities where they accompany groups and facilitate technical assistance.
Focus
- Supporting Grassroots Land and Environmental Justice as a Solution to the Climate Crisis
- This call for Expressions of Interest seeks to support grassroots justice advocates who use legal empowerment to pursue land and environmental justice. They are focusing on this issue because they know that by protecting the land they live from pollution, securing communities’ right to land, and supporting community-driven solutions, grassroots justice advocates are a vital component in combatting the climate crisis.
Funding Information
- Request is between USD 10,000-50,000 annually and represents 25-50% of annual budget.
Geography
- This funding call will be limited to organizations in Southeast Asia. Specifically, the following countries: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam.
Eligibility Criteria
- The funding will be focused on supporting grassroots land and environmental justice groups who are using legal empowerment strategies as a tool to pursue land and environmental justice.
- This would include:
- Using legal empowerment techniques (helping communities/individuals know, use, or shape the law). Must show at least some understanding of empowerment beyond individual case management.
- Demonstrated deep connection/commitment to one or more communities.
- Demonstrated use of legal empowerment to address land and environmental justice challenges within one or more communities.
- Demonstrated engagement and interest in building a stronger global movement, e.g., participation in Grassroots Justice Network (formerly Legal Empowerment Network) initiatives.
- The organization budget size is less than USD 200,000 annually.
- All expressions of interest that meet the above criteria will be reviewed. They will give special consideration to the following:
- Work that intentionally seeks to improve the voice and involvement of women, youth, or disabled people as justice seekers.
- Work that explicitly links land and environmental justice issues to climate mitigation (preventing the climate crisis, e.g., stopping pollution in your neighborhood), or adaptation (responding to the impacts of the climate crisis, e.g., rebuilding to respond to floods).
For more information, visit Fund for Global Human Rights.