Tinker Foundation’s Institutional Grants – Cycle 2

Deadline: 25-Jul-24

The Tinker Foundation’s Institutional Grants program is providing project funding to organizations working to improve the lives of Latin Americans.

The Foundation’s funding encompasses three program areas in which research, innovation, scaling of proven models, and exchange of ideas have the potential to make significant, positive impact.

In Cycle 2, they will accept Letters of Inquiry (LOI) only for the Democratic Governance and Education program areas.

Program Areas

• Democratic Governance
  • Today Tinker seeks to build on and deepen this commitment by prioritizing projects focused on justice and the rule of law. They will continue to review and consider other Democratic Governance projects on an ad hoc basis through the letter of inquiry process but anticipate focusing the resources on these core issues.
  • They invite projects that work toward creating and consolidating systems of justice that are independent, effective, reliable, equitable, and transparent. They will consider proposals focused at the national or sub-national level, including those with comparative or regional components. Projects may relate to what could be called the “unfinished work of judicial reform,” i.e., the challenges and opportunities involved with implementing and operating within more recently adopted structures and frameworks.
  • Areas of interest include:
    • Promoting transparency and accountability in the justice sector, both from within justice institutions and without (civil society monitoring, etc.)
    • The selection, training, and assessment of justice sector actors, as well as developing next-generation talent
    • Increasing access to justice, particularly for vulnerable and marginalized groups
  • Tinker will consider a range of project types and methodologies that match the overall grant-making parameters and capacity. These may include research and policy analysis, experimentation with new models and early scale-up of proven approaches, and exchange of knowledge across countries and contexts. They generally do not fund litigation efforts.
  • They will refine the interest areas and approaches as they learn, along with the grantees, from this work.
• Education
  • In recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic caused significant disruptions to education in the region, affecting over 140 million students. Learning poverty, the share of 10-year-olds with the inability to read and understand basic texts, may have increased from 50% to as much as 80%. Recent evidence indicates substantial learning loss, with a risk of increased dropout rates, particularly among historically disadvantaged students, such as those living in rural and/or marginalized contexts, from low-income families, and migrants. The Tinker Foundation is committed to prioritizing students from vulnerable backgrounds and addressing the persistent learning gaps that widened because of the pandemic. In addition, the Foundation seeks to support longer-term strategies that lead to more effective, inclusive, and resilient educational systems in the region.
  • Funding priorities
    • Tinker welcomes promising projects from across the region that:
      • Promote foundational learning recovery and acceleration. After extended school closures and inconsistent access to remote learning, many students have fallen well below grade-level standards. They welcome projects that seek to address these gaps.
      • Evolve curricula and teaching approaches. They invite projects that involve work with school systems, educational leaders, and families to promote basic learning and implement evidence-based pedagogical approaches that increase educational equity and quality.
    • The education program will provide grants to civil society organizations in Latin America aiming to achieve these objectives. Some examples of interventions to be prioritized may include:
      • Diagnostics and accelerated learning plans
      • Teacher training and coaching
      • Tutoring and complementary activities
    • They welcome projects at different stages of implementation, ranging from experiments and pilots of new models to impact evaluations for promising projects to strategies for scaling up proven interventions.
    • Applications to the Education program for this cycle should reflect the following criteria. You may also refer to Tinker’s general grantmaking guidelines for all other considerations.
      • Funding and Project Duration. From $20,000 to $100,000 per year and up to two years of support, depending on the scope and scale of the project. They will consider projects of up to three years in extraordinary cases where projects focus on securing longer-term changes.
      • Educational Level. Tinker will prioritize projects focused on primary school education where early evidence suggests learning gaps are most significant. Promising secondary education programs may be considered in exceptional cases.
      • Type of Organization. Civil society organizations founded and based in Latin America will be prioritized. However, regional and international organizations with substantial on-the-ground presence and a proven track record of collaboration with local stakeholders may apply.
      • School System. They anticipate many projects will involve working directly with school systems and educational communities. The Foundation generally encourages projects that engage public school systems and students, especially those that serve marginalized or vulnerable populations. The Foundation typically does not fund individual schools.
      • Populations Reached. Given longstanding inequities in access to education in the region, the Foundation will prioritize projects that engage students with the following characteristics: residents of rural and low-income urban communities, Indigenous and/or Afro-descendant students, girls, migrants, and internally displaced people.

Funding Information

• Grant amounts vary by program area and project. However, grants typically range between $50,000 to $150,000 per year, for up to three years. They also welcome requests for smaller grants in support of more bounded projects or to complement other resources.

Eligibility Criteria

• Organization Status
  • The Tinker Foundation provides grants only to organizations that are charitable in nature, i.e., with a United States 501(c)(3) tax status or its equivalent if the organization is located outside the U.S. Organizations from Latin America do not need to have United States 501(c)(3) status.
• Geographic Focus
  • The project must be focused on the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries of Latin America, including: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.
• Institutional Program Area
  • The project must fall under one of Tinker’s primary program areas.

Ineligible

• The funds may not be used for:
  • Individuals, including individual research
  • Direct or grassroots lobbying
  • Annual or other fund-raising appeals
  • School tuition or scholarships, or child sponsorships
  • Support for building construction or major equipment purchases
  • Production costs for film, television, and radio projects
  • Art museum collections, films, and exhibits
  • Endowments

For more information, visit Tinker Foundation.