This call for proposals is offered only to organizations located in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands and is not currently a CIPE partner.
Background and Introduction
Marginalized populations are uniquely impacted by political risk factors in the region and bear the brunt of crises like COVID-19 and climate change, while low workforce participation rates and overrepresentation in the informal economy increase the vulnerability of women and LGBTQI+ individuals.
The long-term goal of this initial grants offering is to advance inclusive and equitable access to economic opportunities across the region. In the short-term, CIPE aims to increase the outreach and advocacy ability of the selected organizations. CIPE expects the type of work under these subgrants to include arranging dialogue spaces and policy roundtables; offering technical and leadership training; data collection, research, and white paper publication; national and sub-national advocacy; and cross-regional learning from experiences.
Proposal Guidelines
Please read the following carefully before completing and submitting your application. Please use the accompanying proposal template and accounting questionnaire for submission. Please also see Proposal Writing Suggestions below.
• All proposals should address the theme of “Advancing economic inclusion of marginalized populations.”
• The deadline for submission is 9am EST, November 1, 2022. Only organizations that meet the given deadline will be eligible.
• Grant amounts will be up to $10,000. The actual grant amount should be based on a detailed budget and explanation of activity costs in the proposals.
• The proposed advocacy projects will be nine months in duration, January 1, 2023 – September 30, 2023. Two quarterly narrative and financial reports will be required, due on April 15, 2023 and July 15, 2023. Final narrative and financial reports will be due October 31, 2023. No extensions will be allowed. The final grant payment will be based on submission of the final report. CIPE will provide a reporting template.
• To develop policy recommendations, grantees may use a portion of their small grants to work with think tanks, independent consultants/experts, or universities on identifying practical and achievable policy solutions.
Proposal Guide
CIPE is more likely to fund your project if we understand your motivations, planning, and financial requirements. Please feel free to supply any additional information which you feel is relevant to and will support your application.
• Organizational Background: Introduce your organization; include its mission and vision. What are your goals as an organization? What change do you hope to achieve through your organization?
• Briefly summarize the local context for the project.
• Problem Statement: What is the problem you are trying to solve (for this particular grant, it should address the theme of advancing the economic inclusion of marginalized communities)? Craft a problem statement that makes it clear that there is a real problem that needs to be solved.
• Project Goals, Objective, and Outcome: A goal gives a general statement of your project’s purpose. Objectives are more concrete and specific in how the goal will be achieved. Outcomes are what you hope to achieve when you accomplish the goal. For example, “Completion of the project’s X objective will further our overarching goal of X, leading to the outcome of X.”
• Project Activities: What are the specific activities that will happen during the project? How are the activities linked to and support the intended goal and outcome? What activities are most appropriate, and which will be most effective towards accomplish your objectives and overarching goal? Use your creativity!
• Budget: What justifies the financial and time commitments necessary to execute your project plan? Provide an evidence-based and detailed ten-month budget of up to $10,000. Please provide information on: salaries (by month and the position title), travel (for who, to where, how will they travel, how often, and why are they traveling), contractual services (for what service and who are you contracting?), and any other direct costs to the project (i.e. media outreach, policy help, events, trainings, meetings, Public Private Dialogues (PPDs), etc.).
• Evaluation: This section should clearly describe how you will evaluate your program. Start by highlighting the project objective and clearly explain how the proposed activities will support achieving your objective and lead to the intended outcome.
• To prove the linkage between activities and outcome, what indicators you will use to measure change? Indicators can be qualitative (people’s judgments or perceptions about the issue or change in attitudes of decision-makers). Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative will enable you to assess progress more fully. After defining your indicators, think about what kind of data you will need to access and how you will collect this data to know how close you are to achieving your outcomes. What evidence will you need to collect to support this? Please be able to demonstrate that your program has made a difference that is backed up with measured results and evidence.
CIPE encourages review and reflection among your project team and with your organization throughout your advocacy project. Please continuously share your findings and what you are learning with your colleagues.
Take time to reflect on your progress, successes, and learning.
Please submit completed proposal applications to Senior Program Officer Jennifer Anderson, janderson@cipe.org, and Program Associate Tamanna Amin, Tamin@cipe.org by 9am EST November 1, 2022.
Download proposal template here: