Strengthening grant

Only civil society organisations from the Global South are eligible to apply. Your organisation must be registered and implementing a project in one of AmplifyChange eligible countries. Applicants must also be small to medium sized organisations with an average annual expenditure over the past two years of less than £500,000 per year. All applicants need to have a bank account.

We recognise the broad scope of civil society and the wide range of organisations, actors and coalitions it encompasses.  

Civil Society Organisations can include: 

• Community groups 
• Youth Groups 
• Non-governmental organisations 
• Indigenous groups 
• Charitable organisations 
• Faith-based organisations 
• Research institutes 
• Social enterprise groups 
• Public-private partnerships 
• Communications and media groups  
• Professional associations 

International Non-Governmental Organisations based in the Global North and UN agencies are not eligible to lead a Strengthening Grant proposal.

Please continue reading to see the specific eligibility criteria for each Strengthening grant call for proposals.

As a challenge fund we rely on you to propose your ideas for successful advocacy to strengthen SRHR.

This Strengthening grant call focuses on supporting advocacy campaigns and organisational strengthening within civil society organisations seeking to bring about positive change in one of the AmplifyChange priority themes or an intersection or combination of themes: 

• Eliminating gender-based violence, including sexual violence, female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and child marriage
• Increasing safe abortion choices
• Challenging stigma and discrimination, attitudes and laws that undermine human rights, including based on gender or sexual orientation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) individuals
• Improving sexual health of young people and girls, including comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), promoting menstrual health and youth-friendly service delivery
• Increasing access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services for poor, vulnerable and marginalised people

AmplifyChange is committed to supporting pleasure-inclusive sexual health and sex positivity within SRHR. We are endorsers of The Pleasure Principles, which have taken evidence and best practice from pleasure-based sexual health interventions and created a set of principles to follow for effective implementation. We are happy to receive applications from organisations who wish to include pleasure-inclusive and pleasure-based approaches to their projects addressing one or more of our five priority themes above. Read more information about pleasure-based SRHR at The Pleasure Project’s website.

Applicants need to think strategically about their local movements and define a role that will make the most effective contribution to change. Applications must respond to one or more of our outcome areas in our Theory of Change:

• Increasing individual awareness of SRHR as human rights 
• Improving access to SRHR resources, information & services 
• Transforming social norms 
• Changing policies & laws 
• Building stronger, more inclusive movements for SRHR 

AmplifyChange funds advocacy. We appreciate that direct service provision can make an immediate impact to SRHR but we advise careful consideration of applications focusing on service delivery activities. We are focused on achieving long-term, sustainable gains. Therefore, all service delivery applications will be appraised by their ability to contribute to advocacy and movement building for sustainable gains to SRHR. 

Requests for Strengthening grant proposals are posted four to six weeks in advance of the opening date for submission of applications. We provide offline application questions to support the development of your proposal before our Grants Portal opens for applications, as well as the project planning workbook. Applicants then will have two weeks to complete their submission in the Grants Portal.

All applications must be submitted online using our online application system. You need to complete a narrative describing your project using the online form. You will also need to upload a budget, workplan and definition of milestones against the AmplifyChange indicator framework using the most up-to-date AmplifyChange Project Planning Workbook. This can be downloaded from the online application system, but we have also made it available below.

We understand that all advocacy to improve sexual and reproductive health and rights involves challenges and that many of you are working in challenging contexts. We therefore strongly encourage you to consider the potential risks that are specific to your project design as well as the broader political, cultural and other environmental potential risks that you will face in achieving your objective. This helps us to understand the context you are working in so do incorporate these into your proposal. We work with all grantee partners to assess and manage risks and do not penalise you for being transparent about the risks inherent in your work. In fact, we regularly reject applications that are not thoughtful and transparent about the challenges involved in their proposed projects. 

We are using a new grants management system, Fluxx, in this funding round. For further information, please consult our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and for further guidance, consult our guides on how to register, change or reset your password, and update your organisational and individual profiles.

What happens next?

All submitted applications will be screened by AmplifyChange for compliance with eligibility criteria. Compliant eligible applications will be reviewed by the AmplifyChange Grant Support Team, Fiduciary Risk Team and the independent Technical Review Panel (TRP).

During application review, we will be using the following criteria to help with our decision making in the final stages: 

• Clear articulation of the specific needs of the current SRHR context in the chosen country or region, and the corresponding approach of the project  
• Demonstrable potential of project to add-value to the SRHR sector and respond to the specific needs of the current SRHR context in the chosen country or region 
• High potential for having a positive impact towards improving SRHR for all. 
• We will not award more than 10% of the available funds to any one country 

Recommendations will be provided to the AmplifyChange Board of Directors for their deliberation. The Board’s decisions are final. 

AmplifyChange reserves the right to balance recommended applications based on the wider AmplifyChange portfolio considering SRHR needs and geography in line with our benchmarks and results framework. 

How do I write a good application?

We asked our Technical Review Panel (TRP) to provide their top-tips for writing a strong application. Watch the film below and download the PDF guide to see their advice.

For more help to develop your proposal, please review our Knowledge section of our website. It includes guidance on writing applications, as well as support on how to address our key outcome areas.

Prior to awarding a grant, if your application is recommended for funding, your organisation will undergo an assessment to verify your ability to manage the funds. This assessment is not a test but will enable us to set some organisational strengthening goals to achieve during the grant. You will also have the opportunity to revisit the application and update the proposal to ensure it is still relevant. You can learn more about our financial requirements and best practices for strengthening your organisation in our Building Blocks Handbook. Specific requirements for Strengthening grants are available here.

Learn from AmplifyChange grantees

Some of the best AmplifyChange grantees have shared practical advice from their experience of strengthening their organisations and the tactics they have successfully used to advocate for improved SRHR.

Check out amplifychangelearn.org to read practical how-to guides written by organisations that have received AmplifyChange grants.