Civil Connections Community Impact Fund (CCCIF)
What it is about:
Civil Connections is starting a Small Grants program where we will award small grants of between 1.000 DKK and 10.000 DKK (150 and 1,500 USD) to causes, projects, actors, organizations, ideas – that our grants committee will deem impactful at the grassroots.
When does it start?
We envision this to start in the fall of 2022 – and will in the first instance mainly be connected to the projects we are already implementing across Uganda, Ghana, Morocco, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe.
Why - motivation from the field
In our work with young people and local communities across the different projects we run, we come across many young people – we call them ‘impact dreamers’ who come to us with ideas of startups but have no resources to try them out. Commonly, these are ideas that are reactionary and complimentary to the specific projects we are running with them, within in a specific context, which if given the slightest chance of start-test-improve, could maybe become the next ingredient in some of the community’s solution. And thus, our introduction of the Civil Connections Community Impact Fund (CCCIF).
Criteria for selecting the grantees:
The potential impact of the idea.
As the fund’s name suggests, impact is the top priority of for any idea to receive support. The first question one has to ask themselves therefor is – will the idea have a meaningful impact on lives of the local community it is being suggested for? This is to say, will the idea touch a large group of the community, and being about or build step stones for further changes in the community?
Connected to and for the community:
Again, although individual ideas qualify for the fund, this has to be for the benefit of the community. So, a guiding question here will be – does the proposed solution center and foster community involvement, ownership, and improvement?
Context aware:
It is one thing to be connected to the community and another to understand the context in which the idea will be implemented. So, here a leading question is – does the proposed idea indicate a satisfactory understanding of the context within which it will be implemented? Will the proposed approach enable the team to build and integrate the solution into that context in a sustainable way?
Feasibility:
One this is to start things – another is to demonstrate that you actually can pull through with what you have started. So, think through questions like – do I/we have the skills, capacity, knowledge, or lived experience to implement the proposed idea, or have a plan to build those skills?
Where the funds come from:
To build this grant program we are saving up 30% of all our administration portions across the different projects and incomes we gain, to distribute these further down the value chain. Our ambition is to increase this gradually to 50% of all our administration budgets over the years. The first wave of grants will start at the end of 2022 and will be mainly identified through/side by side with our current projects.
Who is in charge?
The pioneer grants committee will be our current Executive Board until the need arises to establish a specific one. The members include the following:
Rita Tisdall
Board Chaiperson
Civil Connections
Stine Eilers
Board Vice Chairperson
Civil Connections
Rebecca Campbell
Board Treasurer
Civil Connections
Martina Popadakova
Board Member
Civil Connections
Andrew Julius Bende
Board Member
Civil Connections