Voice Nigeria is delighted to announce the opening of calls for proposal of its Empowerment Grant targeting both formal and informal groups in Nigeria. This is an opportunity for civil society organisations (CSOs), community based organisations, informal groups (preferably group of the target beneficiaries of Voice- see Voice target beneficiaries on our country page here) who have been able to identify specific issue(s) affecting them (where the application is brought by the target beneficiaries of Voice/by their representatives and are willing to work together on such issue etc. This is an opportunity for such CSOs, group of persons/bodies who have been doing wonderful work but have not had the opportunity to access grants; eg. organisations based in our rural areas providing interventions at grass root level.

This grant will support activities aimed at:

• Building the capacity of the target beneficiaries of Voice or their representatives. Thus, networks representing the target beneficiaries of Voice can take advantage of this grant for institutional strengthening of their organisation. Applications designed as capacity building of individual target beneficiaries in the form of skill acquisition must provide clear outline of sustainability of such intervention, because Voice cannot fund costs like ‘seed fund/kick-starting fund’ designated as service delivery;
• Restoring and/advancing the self-confidence, self-realisation, self-acceptance and or motivation for the target beneficiaries of Voice
• Facilitating mainstreaming and/acceptance of the target beneficiaries of Voice into their family, specific community, or society at large, eg. outcasts like ‘the Osu’ people of Igbo Land, who are stigmatised by mere fact of their descent;
• Facilitating transformative leadership of Voice target beneficiaries at community level
• Bridging gender gaps, power differences, resource imbalance etc. as it affects the target beneficiaries of Voice at grassroot level;
• Rebuilding indigenous groups, especially those that have been pushed away by development
• Empowering the target beneficiaries with information about their rights, opportunities, safe spaces, and linkages that can advance their access to justice, resources, or self-sustenance

Important Note: The above listed activities are not exhaustive, thus applicants are invited to come up with innovative ideas of empowering the target beneficiaries of Voice/their representatives that are not service delivery in nature. Also note that applications by informal groups or organisations are allowed, however they will need to get a registered organisation who has a Euro bank account in its name to host the project on their behalf because Voice can only transfer funds to accounts opened in the name of applicant/successful grantee.

Empowerment grants are small grants of €5,000 up to €25,000 for interventions that are within a maximum period of 12 months.

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.