This Call for Proposals is all about movement-building. Coming together, moving forever is about nurturing emerging movements, groups and organisations, and catalysing cross-border alliances with other like-minded organisations to work towards a shared dream. This is a perfect opportunity to come together and start building the individual and collective confidence, skills and power in promoting inclusion for all.

What type of movements do we wish to fund?

For Voice, influencing and empowerment processes are intimately tied together. People undergo processes by which they gain power over their own lives and can make their own decisions. An idea or project under this call for proposals can focus on taking further steps to convene and consolidate cross-border social movements of Voice rightsholder groups to push together for inclusion. It may include training in developing (basic) leadership, organisational and/or advocacy skills designed to further connect community leaders, advocates, and/or activists from neighbouring countries.

We recognise that a lot of movements need support at the moment. To do justice to our mandate to prioritise those furthest behind first, for this Call, we are only welcoming applications from the following emerging Voice rightsholder groups:

• People with Albinism.
• People affected by (or at risk of) Statelessness.
• Indigenous people and or ethnic minorities
• Intersex people.

Voice has a strong preference for projects that are designed from an intersectional point of view. This means projects should work to address overlapping vulnerabilities and/or forms of discrimination, even those emerging from intra-group dynamics. For example, you will need to ensure different genders and ages are well-represented and involved in your project. These characteristics can make it harder for some people to participate in all spheres of life. We need to make sure that we are all walking the talk!

These grants can be up to € 150.000,00 and for a maximum duration of 24 months.

Where do we wish to fund?

Proposals containing “out of the box” project ideas, promoting cross-country learning, and focusing on underrepresented groups within the following Voice focus regions:

• East Africa (mainly Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda)
• West Africa (mainly Nigeria, Niger and Mali)
• Southeast Asia (mainly Cambodia, Laos, Philippines and Indonesia)

We are also open to supporting global or regional emerging movements as long as the bulk of activities focus on one of the regions and focus countries mentioned above.  

Finally, your project can look at any or all of the following impact themes:

• Improved access to (productive) resources (finance, land and water) and employment,
• Improved access to social services, health and education in particular, and
• Space for political participation and citizen engagement.

Still in need of more inspiration or ideas?

We invite you to take a look at the different Empowerment and Influencing projects supported by Voice via our Grantee page.

For more information about Voice strategic and programmatic priorities, we highly recommend you to explore our recently updated Global (and Country-specific) Context Analyses, and our last Annual Report 2019 – VOICES UNTAMED. If you need more inspiration to develop your ideas, you can look at the type of projects that Voice currently funds – or has funded in the past – through our Grantee page, and filter by “Multi-Country” grants.

Who do we wish to fund?

The (lead) applicant must be rightsholder group-led. What does this mean? An organisation (formal/informal) is rightsholder group-led when it is governed and managed by members of the rightsholder group(s). The principle of “Nothing About Us Without Us” guides their work. If the rightsholder group(s) do not play roles in the governance and management of the organisation, the proposal needs to describe how the groups are fully involved in the conceptualisation, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of the project.

Additionally, the (lead) applicant must be registered in one of the countries in the region where their project will be implemented with an operational local bank account in the applicant’s name. For example: For a project in West Africa, the (lead) applicant needs to be registered in either Niger, Mali, Nigeria or another neighbouring country in West Africa. 

The only exception is if the grant cannot be led by an organisation based in the countries due to the nature of the proposed project presenting additional security or safety risks. In this case, Voice allows an application led by a rightsholder group-led organisation in a third country (preferably in a neighbouring country in the region where the project will be implemented). Obviously, the majority of the activities still need to be implemented in close collaboration with local groups in the Voice focus countries, taking security and safety into account.

What we won’t fund:

• Proposals from organisations who have been awarded a Voice global or multi-country grant in the past.
• Existing grantees working at the national level can only apply (as the lead applicants) with a project that will start after their current Voice-funded project ends. Voice can only have one contract at a time with a (lead) organisation.
• Projects led by current strategic partners of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation are not eligible for this call. In particular, those organisations funded under the “Dialogue and Dissent 2016-2020” and/or “Power of Voices 2021-2024” Policy Frameworks.
• Organisations with an annual turnover of over €2 million based on income figures of 2019.  
• An application where the grant awarded from Voice is more than 50% of the total annual income of the applicant organisation.
  • The way to calculate this is to divide the requested amount by number of years the project will be implemented. The result will then be divided by the annual income.
  • If the result of this calculation is over 50% you can either reduce the requested amount or team up as part of a consortium where you can add up the annual incomes
• Funding for commercial services, investment or other commercial activities.

This Call for Proposals is closed and no longer accepting applications. Come back here at a later stage to learn about the grantees that have been selected in this Call for Proposals.

The current open Calls for Proposals can be found here.