About: GFW is a grantmaking foundation supporting women-led organisations developing projects to advance women’s human rights. The main goal of the Fund is to help women to reach their potential and live free of discrimination and violence.
Geographical Area of Intervention: Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa. GFW does not give grants to organisations in the United States.
Themes:
The core goals of the Fund are:
1) Advancing health and sexual and reproductive rights
2) Building peace and ending gender-based violence
3) Ensuring economic and environmental justice
4) Expanding civil society and political participation
5) Improving access to education
6) Fostering social change
Types of Grants:
1) Innovation Grant funds new and original approaches towards the achievement of any of the core goals of the Fund. For instance, proposals could suggest the implementation of pilot projects or they could present creative methodologies to tackle issues that have already been addressed by other organisations. The scope of the Innovation Grant is to give visibility to new women’s movements and also to build working relationships between new and old organisations.
2) Strengthening Grant funds the construction of infrastructures and support organisations’ capacity building and networking. These are medium size grants available to organisations with a good track record for impact in the communities where they work also by collaborating with mainstream media.
3) Sustaining Grant funds national, regional and global networks of women’s organisations to strengthen their collective impact in promoting women’s rights around the world. These are large grants and applications are restricted to organisations that have long worked with GFW (normally applications are invited). Applicants have to demonstrate significant capacity growth and an excellent track record for impact in the communities where they operate.
Eligibility:
In order to apply for funding, your organisation must be formed by a group of women, it must demonstrate a clear commitment to women’s equality and women’s rights, it must be led and administered by women and it must be based outside the United States. Additionally, organisations working in the Global North are not eligible if they propose partnerships with organisations from the Global South. Government entities and political parties are not eligible as well as organisations whose sole activities are income-generation and/or charity.
How to apply:
The GFW accepts proposals twice a year. Grants range from $500 to $30,000.
A group of women activists will assess the proposals and decide on the final awards.
Applications are available in 5 languages: Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish and must be submitted online. The application forms are available here.
Deadlines: Applications are accepted for 2 cycles as follow:
1) Cycle 1: proposals could be sent from October 15 to December 31. Applicants will be notified about the results of the selection process by mid May.
2) Cycle 2: proposals could be sent from March 15 to June 30. Applicants will be notified about the results of the selection by mid November.
