About: Mama Cash is the oldest international women’s fund. The Foundation supports women-led initiatives promoting women’s rights and social change. Mama Cash is a risk-taking organisation that mainly funds pioneering, taboo breaking and risk taking initiatives. Main belief of Mama Cash is that by investing in women and girls, the world could become more peaceful, more just and more sustainable.
Geographical Area of Intervention: Asia, Africa, Middle East, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Themes: Mama cash funds projects at the crossroads of 3 core themes: Body, Money and Voice.
- Body means the safety to decide about one’s own body. Accordingly, projects could address issues of women’s safety, the right to choose a sexual partner, the right to decide on gender identity among others.
- Money means to guarantee economic rights to women. Related issues are equal pay for men and women, the end of women’s sexual exploitation, women’s right to better education and to access better jobs and ensure financial independency. Proposed activities could be the setting up of business ventures that are also environmentally sustainable.
- Voice means to empower women and make their voices heard. Issues that could be addressed are how to facilitate the access of women in governing institutions or to empower women in civil society, how to enable women to take active part in processes of conflict resolution and reconciliation.
Types of Grants: Grants’ size ranges from Euro 5,000 to 50,000. Mama Cash funds both single-year and multi-year projects (up to 3 years).
- Additional Fund: The Red Umbrella Fund is a special Fund created by Mama Cash in 2012. This Fund gives money to sex workers-led organisations to sponsor awareness campaigns, networking strategies, and economic empowerment and social inclusion of sex workers. This Fund provides start-up funding, multi-year funding and core funding to eligible organisations. The first call for applications closed in 2012 and the new one has not been yet advertised.
More information could be found here
Eligibility:
Mama Cash financially supports innovate feminist and women’s rights organisations, networks and funds led by women. The Fund prioritises groups formed by marginalised women and those whose annual budget is under Euro 200,000. Applicants must be non-profit organisations, informal groups, networks or coalitions. Also, applicants must show proved commitments towards the implementation of collaborative projects with other women’s organisations.
Mama Cash does not fund organisations based in the US and Canada nor organisations from the Global North leading partnerships with organisations from the Global South. Applications from organisations funded by political parties or religious communities are not accepted.
Each organisation can become the recipient of only 1 grant every 12 months.
How to apply: First of all, you must send a Letter of Interest explaining why you think that your project fits into Mama Cash’s area of intervention. Only selected candidates will be invited to submit a full project proposal. Those who are not selected will be notified within 4 weeks and given a constructive feedback. The entire application process lasts for approximately 4 months.
Deadlines: Letters of interest are accepted all year long. You can download the Letter of Interest template from here
