Do you want to try something new and innovative to support your target groups?  Have you tested a new approach but haven’t had time or resources to document, reflect and learn?   Do you want to try using artivism (art for activism) to amplify the voices of your target groups? Do you want to scale up and disseminate an innovative approach but with a different target group or geographical area?

If you answered yes to any of the questions above, then we encourage you to apply to Let’s try something new.

Innovate and Learn grants focus on organisations that want to learn from innovation and/or to test and scale new approaches. Voice focuses less on technology but prefers human-centred innovations that are context-specific and relevant to empowering, amplifying and/or influencing the voice of the target groups. Many new, interesting and effective methods and approaches for supporting the Voice target group(s) exist to help them participate in their own governance and improving access to resources and services. The grant hopes to capture and stimulate learning of these methods to develop an evidence-base for future programming at national, regional and global level.

Innovate and learn grants are available from €5,000 to €200,000 on a rolling basis and for a period of minimum 12 and a maximum of 24 months. Please note that we have removed the income restriction of 40% so also young start-ups can apply. Also note that we will not award a Euro 200,000 grant to a young start-up so be reasonable what you ask for.   

We strongly encourage applications that seek to inject innovative ideas and approaches in their work among marginalised groups such as the use of sports, theatre performances (films, music, dance and drama) poetry, comedy, painting as well as the use of ICTs and social media.

What do we wish to fund?

This Call for Proposals will help Voice in Cambodia meet its objectives. Voice will fund projects that focus on the following target groups:

1. People with disabilities
2. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-gender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI)
3. Indigenous people and ethnic minorities

With at least one of the following target groups as a cross-cutting issue?

1. Age discriminated vulnerable groups notably the young or elderly
2. Women facing exploitation, abuse and/or violence

Often the most marginalised and discriminated are those who may be vulnerable due to multiple reasons. Therefore, Voice has a strong preference for projects that intend to work with more than one target group to address overlapping vulnerabilities.

Your project can look at any or all of the following 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

Your grant can be from €5,000 to €200,000 and from 12 to 24 months in duration.

What do we mean by Innovation:

For Voice, innovation means anything that has not been tried before in a particular context. If you have a new idea, method or approach, you are welcome to propose it in your application. Innovation also means using tried and tested influencing methods but for new purposes and with new target groups, audiences and themes.

Voice encourages network, partnership and consortia applications because each organisation may bring new ideas to the project and each partner can learn from each other.  You may also wish to partner with “unusual suspects” like media companies, campaigners and artists who may encourage new ways of advocacy and influence.

Where do we wish to fund?

Voice will only fund projects that intend to work in the existing target areas including Battambong, Banteay Meanchey, Siem Reap, Kampong Chnang, Kampong Cham, Svay Reang, Takeo, Rattanakiri and Phnom Penh.

Who do we wish to fund?

Applications are only being accepted for locally registered Cambodian organisations as lead applicant including but not limited to social enterprises and/or start-ups. International organisations are not able to be a lead applicant but can team up as a co-applicant in the case of consortium applications.

The lead applicant must have a strong representation from or affinity with the target group it wants to support.

What we won’t fund:

• Organisations with an annual turnover of over €2 million.
• Funding of commercial services, investment or other commercial activities.

This call for proposals is closed, so application is no longer possible. Please come back here at a later stage to learn about the grantees that have been selected in this call for proposals.

Calls for proposals for Influencing grants will be opened once a year, while for Empowerment, Innovate and Learn and Sudden Opportunity grants we accept proposals on a rolling basis. The current open calls for proposals can be found here.