Funding Friday...
Develop Impact - Issue 154
Hello and happy Friday!
You’ve made it, hope you have had a great and impactful work week.
In this week's edition, we’re highlighting twenty-one global funding opportunities for your #tech4good project to address challenges and build a more sustainable and inclusive world.
In addition, if you have anything you would like to share with this community, please let me know.
Have a good weekend!
Jesse
What’s funding this week…
Global
$25 Million Global Innovation Challenge: Food Security
The Citi Foundation announced its first-ever Global Innovation Challenge request for proposals to support community organizations around the world that are developing innovative solutions to advance food security. This inaugural challenge will provide a collective of $25 million to 50 organizations working to pilot or expand ideas and projects that are designed to improve food security and strengthen the financial health of low-income families and communities.
The Citi Foundation is focused on the role that NGOs play in addressing food insecurity in communities around the world. This is a purposefully broad question intended to surface locally relevant and potentially game-changing ideas. In this first Challenge, Foundation support will include:
Grants of $500,000, to be used over a 24-month period, to 50 finalists in select communities where Citi has a presence.
Grants are meant to be catalytic in nature, supporting the piloting or expansion of ideas and projects in the field of food security. In addition, the Citi Foundation will offer post-funding support by connecting grantees to Citi subject matter experts and employee volunteers as well as hosting learning opportunities to promote shared lessons and best practices on the topic of food security.
Submission deadline: March 22, 2023.
$25 Million Google Funding for AI4Good Solutions
Google.org is committing $25 million to fund solutions that accelerate progress toward Global Goals. Google.org is looking for nonprofits and social enterprises that can use AI solutions to accelerate progress toward SGDs and meet the following criteria:
Impact: How does the application of AI accelerate progress towards Global Goals, break through barriers, or reduce inefficiencies?
Sustainability: How can this project scale beyond the initial proposal? How will the project continue beyond Google.org’s funding?
Feasibility: Does the team have a well-developed, realistic plan for execution and the technical expertise needed to apply AI to the problem?
Responsibility: Is AI the appropriate tool to tackle the issue? Does this proposal apply technology in an innovative and effective way?
Google.org will provide support through a combination of funding, product donations, and technical expertise. Google.org AI for Social Good funding ranges from $500k to $2M, with the median at $1.3M.
Submission deadline: March 17, 2023.
2023 VV Visionaries Program to Support Women Leaders
The VV Visionaries program, created in partnership with the Estée Lauder Emerging Leaders Fund, invests in trailblazing women leaders to create positive social impact in their communities and beyond. Three cohorts of 50 women visionaries will participate in a 7-week immersive virtual experience built on the proven leadership model of Vital Voices.
Submission deadline: March 10, 2023.
MIT Solve: Financial Inclusion Challenge
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Solve is looking for eight technology-based solutions that will make transactions easier, protect against predatory debt, and increase the ability of individuals and MSMEs to take risks and build wealth. To that end, Solve seeks solutions that:
Make it easier and more affordable for individuals and MSMEs to make investments and transfer payments, across geographies and different types of platforms.
Provide new ways to accurately assess the creditworthiness of MSMEs and individuals, including methods that reduce bias against borrowers who have traditionally lacked equitable access to credit.
Create and/or reduce frictions to scale safe personal identification methods for individuals who have been kept out of the formal financial system due to a lack of formal identification.
Help gather, synthesize, or use relevant data to inform the design of insurance products tailored to populations at greater risk of facing shocks such as climate disasters, health-related disruptions, or unstable markets.
Selected solutions will receive and a minimum of $10,000 in funding, and much more.
Submission deadline: March 9, 2023.
Open Call for Learning for Civic Action Challenge
The MIT Solve community is looking for eight technology-enabled solutions that help learners take effective action on community and global issues by deepening civic knowledge and practicing collaborative problem-solving. To that end, Solve seeks solutions that:
Provide access to improved civic action learning in a wide range of contexts with educator support for classroom-based approaches, and community-building opportunities for out-of-school, community-based approaches.
Help learners acquire key civic skills and knowledge, including how to assess the credibility of information, engage across differences, understand one’s own agency, and engage with issues of power, privilege, and injustice.
Build core social-emotional learning skills, including self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.
Enable learners to bridge civic knowledge with taking action by understanding real-world problems, building networks, organizing plans for collective action, and exploring prosocial careers.
Selected solutions will receive and a minimum of $10,000 in funding, and much more.
Submission deadline: March 9, 2023.
Asia-Pacific
TechEmerge Sustainable Cooling – India Cooling Innovation Lab
This initiative offers competitively selected innovators worldwide and Indian adopters a total pool of up to $1.2 million in grant funding to implement sustainable cooling pilots in India and beyond. The TechEmerge and Tabreed teams also provide support throughout field testing to help innovators mitigate financial and operational risks, reduce adoption risks for local companies, and facilitate market entry and tech transfer.
The Cooling Innovation Lab is seeking new technologies and business models that can improve the costs and energy efficiency of cooling operations while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Submission deadline: March 19, 2023.
Call for Concept Notes – Young Entrepreneurs Grants Program FY 2023
The U.S. Department of State, Embassy of the United States in Kathmandu, announces an open competition to implement a program to promote and support young entrepreneurship in Nepal.
This project will train entrepreneurs aged 20 to 45 years old in fundamental business strategies and knowledge. They are looking for projects that will help entrepreneurs to develop one or more of the following skills:
Accounting and Financial Literacy
Business Laws
Business Strategic Planning
Sales, Marketing, and Pitching
Product Development and Design Thinking
Project Management
Communication Skills: Negotiation, Confidence, Networking
Time Management
Data Analysis
International Trade Rules and Competitiveness
Talent Recruitment and Retention
Business Cases
Total grant amount available: $ 15,000 USD
Submission deadline: March 17, 2023.
The Australia Day Foundation UK Trust: Open Call
Applications are now open for the Australia Day Foundation UK Trust offers financial support to young Australian residents abroad or in the United Kingdom who are to undertake to further their education or career in the United Kingdom in any field of endeavor including education, business, sports, arts and culture and the professions.
Grants can be up to £10,000 except in the exceptional circumstance where the Trustees consider a higher amount may be awarded.
Submission deadline: April 30, 2023.
Europe
Call for Proposals to Enhance Agricultural Sector
The goals of these programs need to comply with the general and specific goals listed in Article 2 and the objectives listed in Article 3 of Regulation (EU), which specifically highlights the unique characteristics of agricultural production methods in the Union, particularly in terms of food safety, traceability, authenticity, labeling, nutritional and health aspects, animal welfare, respect for the environment, and sustainability (including climate benefits). The available call budget is EUR 84 000 000.
Submission deadline: April 20, 2023.
Social Agriculture Development Fund in Albania
COSV in Albania, as the lead partner of the EU-funded project TOKA JONE, is launching the Social Agriculture Development Fund (SADF) sub-granting scheme to promote the sustainable reuse of confiscated assets to benefit vulnerable groups at risk of exclusion. The main aim of the CfP will be to develop innovative social agriculture initiatives reusing seized assets as a means to promote socio-economic development, and the use of agricultural land through community–based social farming services.
Sub-grants of up to €60.000 will be awarded to help socially reuse the agricultural land confiscated from crime in the regional areas of Tirana and Durres.
Submission deadline: March 27, 2023.
Eurostars call for projects APR 2023
Eurostars is a funding instrument that supports innovative SMEs and project partners (large companies, universities, research organizations, and other types of organizations) by funding international collaborative R&D and innovation projects. By participating, organizations can access public funding for international collaborative R&D projects in all fields.
The amount of funding your organization receives when you participate in a project is managed by your national funding body. Funding rules vary from country to country and your national funding body decides:
which organizations can receive funding,
which project activities can be funded and
funding rates.
Submission deadline: April 13, 2023.
ABN AMRO + Techstars Future of Finance Accelerator Program in the Netherlands
The ABN AMRO + Techstars Future of Finance Accelerator Program is for exceptional entrepreneurs across all areas of fintech with a specific focus on digital assets and sustainability.
Techstars provides accelerator portfolio companies with access to financial, human, and intellectual capital to fuel the success of their business. Techstars contributes $20,000, which is commonly used as a stipend to support living expenses during the program, and in return receives 6% equity of the company (on a fully diluted basis, issued as common stock) until the company raises a price equity financing of US $250,000 or more (a “Qualified Financing”). Additionally, upon acceptance to a Techstars mentorship-driven accelerator, every company is offered an optional $100,000 convertible note.
Submission deadline: May 10, 2023.
Open Call for Vocational Training Programme 2022-2024
The Regional Rural Development Standing Working Group (SWG) is seeking applications from qualified applicants in the Western Balkans countries/territories of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia to apply for funding costs for vocational training in tourism, agriculture and other cross-cutting sectors like Business Development and ICT, identified as important for economic diversification in the rural areas.
This RFA is a two-stage application process. In the first stage, applicants are asked to submit an Application for Vocational training funding in the attached format, which will be reviewed by SWG’s Evaluation Committee. Applicants will be notified if their application for training qualifies for reimbursement. In the second stage, the applicant will send SWG the certificate obtained upon which SWG will reimburse the applicant for funding of up to 300 EUR gross including all related taxes of the training cost.
Submission deadline: March 31, 2023.
Chevening Western Balkans Cyber Security Fellowship
The Chevening Western Balkans Cyber Security Fellowship is aimed at mid-career professionals with demonstrable leadership potential in the field of cyber security or cyber policy in the Western Balkans. This ten-week fellowship provides fellows with an understanding of policy and legislative approaches in cyber security and its implications for national security, commercial opportunity, crime prevention, and the right to privacy.
Each fellowship includes:
Full program fees
Living expenses for the duration of the fellowship
Return economy airfare from the Western Balkans to the UK
Submission deadline: March 7, 2023.
Middle East and Africa
UNDP-4YFN Women Innovators Programme in the Arab States
The Women Innovators Programme (WIP) is a partnership between the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the Arab States and Four Years From Now (4YFN), the start-up platform of the global mobile operators’ association, GSMA. WIP is a mentorship program for women-led, digital, and social impact-oriented start-ups in the Arab States.
Mentorship will take place entirely virtually over a period of approximately 3 months, with at least 10 hours of mentorship during that period in addition to approximately 2 hours of peer-to-peer and group learning sessions per month. The program will begin in May, with a high-level launch event and introductions between participants and mentors. A virtual demo day will be held at the end of the mentorship period, with presentations to international investors. The demo day is organized with the purpose of providing exposure to the start-ups, without any guarantee of funding.
Submission deadline: March 19, 2023.
Africa Food Prize: Elevating Heroes of Agriculture
The Africa Food Prize is the preeminent award recognizing an outstanding individual or institution that is leading the effort to change the reality of farming in Africa—from a struggle to survive to a business that thrives.
The US $100,000 prize celebrates Africans who are taking control of Africa’s agriculture agenda. It puts a spotlight on bold initiatives and technical innovations that can be replicated across the continent to create a new era of food security and economic opportunity for all Africans.
Submission deadline: June 17, 2023.
Innovating Justice Challenge 2023
The Justice Accelerator is HiiL’s flagship innovation program that funds, trains, and coaches a global cohort of justice startups. We seek startups that solve people’s justice problems and aspire for them to have access to justice at work, at home, in their neighborhoods, and in business.
HiiL’s Justice Accelerator offers you a 4-month long program that provides you with:
€10,000 non-equity funding.
Workshops delivered by industry specialists on a variety of topics from impact measurement to marketing, commercial strategy, and financial modeling
A dedicated coach and a network of expert mentors
Access to HiiL’s global network of justice stakeholders and practitioners, as well as top-notch research and development
International exposure and potential investment opportunities.
Chance to win up to €20.000 at Demo Day
Submission deadline: March 31, 2023.
Request for Applications for a Namibia Partner Organization
The United States African Development Foundation (USADF), an independent agency of the United States Government, is seeking applications from organizations that have the expertise and experience to provide technical assistance and support to grassroots groups who are seeking or are recipients of funding from USADF.
Applicant organizations must have experience providing technical assistance, training, organizational management skills, marketing analysis, and production and planning to indigenous community groups and businesses to ensure that their economic activities are financially sustainable, benefit low-income communities, and meet performance targets.
USADF will award a one-year cooperative agreement grant, which may be renewable for up to five years of service depending on performance during the initial year and each subsequent year of the cooperative agreement.
Submission deadline: March 13, 2023.
TechEmerge Sustainable Cooling Temperature-Controlled Logistics Africa
TechEmerge offers a total pool of $1 million in grant funding to support sustainable cooling pilots in Africa. It also provides expert support throughout field testing that helps to mitigate financial and operational risks for innovators, reduces adoption risks for local firms, and eases market entry and tech transfer.
Priority will go to proven products installed in at least one commercial setting, but innovations at the product development stage will also be considered. Specifically, TechEmerge is seeking sustainable solutions that reduce losses in cold chains and strengthen access to TCL-dependent products and markets for long and short-haul transportation, warehouse cooling, IoT applications, and Cross-cutting cold chain solutions.
Submission deadline: March 19, 2023.
Americas
TechEmerge Sustainable Cooling – Agri Value Chains Andean Countries
TechEmerge’s Sustainable Cooling Agri Value Chains Andean Region program offers a total pool of $ 1 million in grant funding to support pilot implementation. TechEmerge also provides valuable support throughout field testing, mitigating financial and operational risks for innovators, reducing adoption risks for local firms, and easing market entry and tech transfer.
Priority will go to companies with proven products installed in at least one commercial setting, but innovations at the product development stage will also be considered. Leading local companies receive comprehensive support to identify, field test, adapt, and adopt the best sustainable cooling solutions from across the world that meet their unique needs.
Submission deadline: March 19, 2023.
Acumen Fellows Program in Colombia
Acumen is organizing a meeting space for people in different countries who understand how to create systemic change in a complex and interconnected world. With the Fellows Program, Acumen focuses on those who work to transform society, through content that connects and cultivates agents of social change committed to eradicating inequality and injustice.
What will you learn in the Program?
The Program is divided into content modules. These are:
Stock Aligned Values - Good Society Readings
Analysis and better diagnoses – Systems Thinking
Decision making – Polarity management
Communication that leads to action – Authentic Voice
Exercise leadership actions – Adaptive Leadership
Submission deadline: March 9, 2023.