Grants – VCSA Fund

OPPORTUNITY GRANTS AND MOVEMENT BUILDING GRANTS CLOSED FOR APPLICATIONS.

Key facts

Opportunity Grant		Movement Building Grant

Maximum GBP 5000 per year renewable for two years= GBP 10,000		Maximum GBP 50,000 over two years
South Africa, Zimbabwe and Lesotho		Any Southern African Development Community Country
Deadline for full application: Midnight SA time on Wednesday 31 August 2022		Deadline for concept note: Midnight SA time on Monday 22 August 2022
		Deadline for full application: Midnight SA time on Friday 30 September 2022.
Grant period: From 1 January 2023 to 30 December 2024
Areas of work for both grants
Increasing access to reproductive health	Improving sexual health of young people		Removing barriers to safe abortion
Eliminating GBV		Removing stigma and discrimination

Women’s Rights organisations are invited to apply for funding from the Voice and Choice Southern Africa (VCSA) Fund, established under the Amplify Change Partnership Grant. The fund is managed by Gender Links through the GL Sustainability Hub Grant Making Unit.

About the Grants Calls

The VCSA Fund offers two types of Grants

1. Opportunity Grants – a maximum of GBP 10,000 over two years to organisations with an annual budget of less than GBP 50,000 per annum, in Lesotho, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

2. Movement Building Grants – a maximum of GBP 50,000 over two years for organisations with a budget of less than GBP 500,000 per annum, in any one of the 16 countries of the Southern Africa Development Community.

Applicants may only apply for the Opportunity Grant or Movement Building Grant NOT both. They may only apply for one grant within either of the two windows.

Process

All applications must be filled in online. In the case of the Opportunity Grant you must first fill in the eligibility form, before proceeding to full application The deadline for submission is midnight SA time on 31 August 2022. You will be informed of the outcome by 1 October, 2022.

In the case of the Movement Building Grant, you must also fill out the eligibility form before proceeding to do a concept note. This is due by midnight SA time on 22 August 2022. You will receive a response to your application by 1 September, 2022. If you are successful you will be invited to submit a full proposal by 30 September 2022. The final outcome will be announced by 15 October 2022.

Support

GL seeks to ensure that this process is inclusive as possible and in particular that the online application does not disadvantage any organisation. The following are available to assist:

Country	Name	E Mail	Cell phone
South Africa	Nomthandazo Mankazana-Mokoa	grants1@genderlinks.org.za	+27 (0)73 920 2165 +27 (0)82 560 0066
Lesotho	Ntolo Lekau	lesprogofficer@genderlinks.org.za	+266 (0) 58459182
Zimbabwe	Tapiwa Zvaraya	Zimmande@genderlinks.org.za	+263(0) 773955517

Guides and films

Opportunity grants

OPPORTUNITY GRANT CLOSED FOR APPLICATIONS.

What we are looking for

Opportunity grants provide funding for small organisations to support sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) advocacy at a local level. We support grassroots organisations who often find it difficult to access funding.

The purpose of an Opportunity grant is to help new and smaller community-based groups to pursue innovative ideas and approaches for SRHR advocacy. Grants are for a maximum of GBP 5000 per year for a maximum of two years.

We aim to be flexible in our funding approach so that smaller and new organisations can access funding, but we do expect to support projects that have promising potential to achieve meaningful change for sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Eligibility for the Opportunity Grant

An organisation that is eligible for an Opportunity grant must:

Be a Women’s Rights Organisation. This means that your organisations main focus must include one of the following: women’s or girl’s rights; gender equality; making feminist change; LGBTIQ+. Furthermore your organisation must be women led.
Based in and implementing a project in Lesotho, South Africa or Zimbabwe.
Have an annual income of less than GBP 50,000 and be able to verify this through duly signed financial statements.
Be registered or willing to register before the grant call. Unregistered groups are eligible to apply. If your group is unregistered, you will still be considered for funding and – if successful at application stage – will be subject to the same due diligence and financial assessments that apply to all organisations. If your organisation can register, then we will support you in this process before your project starts. If it is not possible to register, you will need to nominate a fiscal sponsor.
Your organisation has to have or be willing to have a formally constituted Governance structure as part of the grant agreement.
Your organisation has to have or be willing to have a company bank account as part of the grant agreement.
Your organisation has to have or be willing to have more than one signatory to the bank account as part of the grant agreement.

An organisation that is eligible for an Opportunity grant may not be:

An applicant for a Movement Building Grant; or more than one Opportunity Grant.
An individual;
Private company;
Political party;
Government entity;
Discriminatory in any way.

Please take the eligibility test before proceeding to the application.

If you are unsure of your eligibility, please contact grants1@genderlinks.org.za

Movement Building

CLOSED FOR APPLICATIONS

The purpose of the Movement Building grant is to contribute to the development of stronger and more inclusive movements advocating for Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) in Southern Africa. Our appraisal of applications will therefore include an assessment of how resources are allocated across partners to contribute to equitable and effective allocation of resources across a movement. Applicant organisations can only submit one application as the lead, however they can have downstream partners.

What type of Networks are we looking to support?

Applications should be developed jointly with network members. The proposal development, share of the budget and governance of the network should reflect the participation and involvement of the whole network. Applications should propose an effective approach to ongoing monitoring and relationship-building with civil society organisations. This may include:

Inclusive leadership: advocates are stronger when they work together, but more resilient when actors can each stand in their own right. Successful advocacy benefits most from a combination of SRHR expertise and diverse connections. Network grants therefore support efforts to coordinate campaigning across multiple organisations and their public supporter base.
Connecting and community-building: including (but not exclusively) physical convening, mentoring, or facilitating exchanges as part of establishing a stronger community of professional advocates and emerging leaders to SRHR. This would help to create the development of professional identity and career pathways for emerging advocacy leaders.
Linking and learning: to support stronger learning within SRHR advocacy communities. We will support learning activities such as the sharing of best practice or the honest appraisal of failed initiatives. We will also support the production of evidence on advocacy impact and effectiveness of advocacy practice.

Eligibility for the Movement Building Grant

The eligibility criteria refers solely to the lead applicant:

The lead applicant must:

Be a Women’s Rights Organisation. This means that your organisations main focus must include one of the following: women’s or girl’s rights; gender equality; making feminist change; LGBTIQ+. Furthermore your organisation must be women led.
Be registered in a Southern African country. We are seeking to support Southern African based networks, emerging from and rooted in their own communities, with the aim of advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Have the ability to define a strategy, raise funds, set performance targets and other objectives, define a brand identity and have a governance structure fully independent of a Global North-based headquarters or support office.
Be an established civil society organisation₁ with transparent governance structures,
Have audited accounts for the past two years.
Have a bank account with two signatories
Have a registration status that enables them to receive funds from foreign sources
A proven track-record of working in at least one of the five priority themes
A proven track record and capability to provide support to the SRHR movement, with experience of working with or supporting SRHR networks, coalitions, partners or civil society organisations;

An organisation that is eligible for a Movement Building Grant may not be:

An applicant for an Opportunity Grant; or more than one Movement Grant.
An individual;
Private company;
Political party;
Government entity;
Discriminatory in any way.