Women’s Voice and Leadership Program: Multi-Year Funding for Caribbean Women’s Rights and LBTIQ Organizations

Deadline: 14 February 2020

In order to advance women’s and LBTIQ rights and gender equality in the Caribbean region, the Women’s Voice and Leadership – Caribbean (WVL-Caribbean) initiative implemented by the Equality Fund in partnership with the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice (Astraea) with the support of the Government of Canada will support the capacity, leadership, and agendas of grassroots women’s rights organizations (WROs) and lesbian, bisexual, trans, intersex and queer (LBTIQ) groups that advance their own solutions to improve women’s and LBTIQ rights and gender equality in their own contexts.

10+ Funders for Agriculture, Food and Nutrition
10+ Global Donors for Improving Lives of Children in Poor Countries
10+ Donors that believe in building NGO capacities for Civil Society Development
15+ Donors for Saving the Planet: Grants for Environment, Conservation and Wildlife
Objectives

The ultimate outcome of the WVL-Caribbean initiative is to increase the enjoyment of human rights by women, girls, and trans people who are most affected by discrimination, poverty and violence to and advance gender equality in the Caribbean region. This ultimate outcome will be achieved through the following intermediate outcomes:

Improved management and sustainability of local WROs in the Caribbean, particularly those representing vulnerable and marginalized women and girls;
Enhanced delivery of programming and advocacy by WROs to advance gender equality in the Caribbean; and
Increased effectiveness of national and sub-national women’s rights platforms, networks and alliances to affect gender-sensitive policy change and policy implementation in the Caribbean.
Grant Priorities

20+ Donors standing up for Human Rights and Equality
10+ International Donors seeking to improve Access to Water, Hygiene and Sanitation
20+ Global Donors for Empowering Women and Girls
25+ Donors for the Empowerment of Youth
Multi-year grants will cover both activity and core costs, which include but are not limited to support for administrative functions, service provision, awareness raising and advocacy, feminist research, policy dialogue, consultation, networking and mobilizing. Organizations and initiatives that support women and LBTIQ activities facing multiple forms of discrimination will be prioritized.

The project will also prioritize groups and organizations working directly and at the intersections of the following broad thematic areas of focus:

Economic Justice;
Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights;
Feminist Leadership and Movement-Building;
Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Rights; and
Climate Change.
Multi-Year Funding Mechanism
Grant Information

Alerts
The project will provide approximately 20 multi-year grants ranging from CAD $10,000 to CAD $20,000 (USD $7,000 to USD $15,000) per year over a period of three (3) years.

General Grant Criteria

Potential grantees should be feminist groups and women’s and LBTIQ rights organizations. It is considered an asset if applicants are engaged in cross-regional movement-building efforts and networking. Grantees will be selected based on the following considerations:
Groups and organizations that are governed, led and directed by and for women and lesbian, bisexual and trans (LBT) communities;
Groups and organizations that are based and/or working in the following ODA eligible countries in CARICOM: Jamaica, Belize, Guyana, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname;
Groups and organizations that are working toward long-term social change on issues affecting women and LBTIQ people and/or people who face human rights violations based on gender identity, gender expression, sex characteristics and/or sexual orientation;
Groups and organizations with a potential to drive feminist movement-building;
Groups and organizations that have been active for at least one year at the time of their application;
Groups and organizations that have an organizational budget of less than CAD $500,000 (approximately USD $300,000); and
Registered and non-registered groups and organizations will be considered in order to enable newer, often smaller organizations doing work locally to access funds where they have been unable to register due to local conditions. However, for-profit activities, political campaigning activities and activities aimed at proselytizing, will not be funded.
Please note that WVL-Caribbean does NOT fund the following:
Individuals;
Scholarships;
Government entities;
Groups without a strong women’s and/or LBTIQ rights focus;
Groups whose sole purpose is to generate income or to provide charity to individuals;
Groups headed and managed by men without women in the majority of leadership positions; and
Political parties or election campaigns.
For more information, visit https://equalityfund.ca/section/wvl-caribbean