We will grant to a variety of strategies and types of organizations that work to end child marriage and early unions. We are most interested in approaches that support local solutions within the local context and that illustrate how girls, their families, and communities are involved in the design and implementation of the approach.
We are particularly interested in hearing from organizations that fulfill some or all of the following:
- Are girl- and women-led
- Meaningfully involve girls in decisions about program design, implementation, and monitoring (i.e. are girl-centered)
- Are creating a society that allows girls to make their own choices about their futures and enables all people to have the same access to rights and opportunity, regardless of gender identity (i.e., are gender-transformative)
- Support local solutions that address the unique religious, political, economic, social, and cultural norms and drivers that contribute to child marriage and early unions
- Access the most vulnerable and excluded at-risk, married, and formerly-married girls
- Foster community buy-in to enable girls to participate in and be supported by their communities
- Have a focus on one or more of the following:
- Girls’ leadership
- Changing social norms, attitudes, and behaviors that allow child marriage and early unions to continue
- Improving girls’ access to and completion of 12 years of safe, free, and quality education
- Improving girls’ access to sexual and reproductive health education, information, and services, including safe abortion (where legal) and post-abortion care
Community-based organizations and locally-focused national or sub-national organizations that work in the following locations are eligible to apply:
- Democratic Republic of the Congo (Haut-Katanga and/or Tanganyika provinces)
- Dominican Republic
- India (Jharkhand state)
- Nepal
- Niger
- Uganda
We define a community-based organization (CBO) as an organization that is engaged in the community, works from within the community, is accountable to the community, and is staffed by people from the community.
CBOs focus on issues and concerns directly affecting the local level (neighborhood, city, district). They include both formal and informal organizations. CBOs are sometimes referred to as grassroots organizations or locally-led organizations. CBOs include, but are not limited to:
- Community groups
- Self-help groups
- Women’s groups
- Girls’ groups
- Youth groups
- Indigenous groups
- Associations
- Networks, collectives, and coalitions
- Non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
- Civil society organizations (CSOs)
- Charitable organizations
- Faith-based organizations (must have a no proselytizing policy)
- Labor unions
We define a locally-focused national and sub-national organization as an organization with an existing deep presence in, local connection to, and contextual knowledge of the communities where the proposed work will take place. They believe in participatory engagement and work with local information, local connections, and learnings to guide programming direction and strategies. They avoid a top-down program design. The head office and organizational leadership is based in the country; they are not an affiliate/branch of an international organization. They must be able to demonstrate experience of work in and with the communities where the proposed work will take place in order to be eligible.
We will not be granting to:
- Individuals
- INGOs
- NGOs that are an affiliate or branch of an INGO and/or where the head office or organizational leadership is located outside of the eligible country in which the work will take place (the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, India, Nepal, Niger, or Uganda)
- Organizations with a known political affiliation, such as support from or to political groups
- For-profit entities
- Faith-based organizations which attempt to convert individuals or advocate for individuals to join or adopt a particular religious creed, ideology, belief, cause, or view in connection with programming or activities
- Research or educational institutions