Solidarity Fund

Only women’s funds are eligible to apply for Solidarity Fund grants:

• Self-led: women’s funds must be led by the populations they seek to support. Those directly involved in/affected by the issues the fund is trying to address must be part of the fund’s leadership and decision-making; 
• Feminist: women’s funds primary mission must be to support women’s, girls, trans and intersex people in their efforts to uphold their rights. Women’s funds must also have a vision and strategy to challenge and transform unjust power structures;
• Autonomous: a women’s fund is not a programme of a larger entity and has independent decision making over their grants and resource mobilisation, or alternatively have concrete plans to become autonomous in the short to medium term; 
• Involved in both mobilising resources and grantmaking: women’s funds raise funds to provide grants and support to groups, collectives, and individuals that are organising to defend and advance women’s, girls, trans and intersex people’s rights. 

Applicants are not required to be a member of Prospera – The International Network of Women’s Funds to be considered for funding; nascent and emergent funds are welcome to apply.  

Women’s funds who have previously received a Solidarity Fund grant are welcome to apply again.

• The Solidarity Fund intends to support the organisational needs for women’s funds in an area they identify themselves. Examples of how the Solidarity Fund has been used include: supporting leadership transitions, strengthening learning and evaluation systems, collective care for staff, developing financial resilience strategies, improving digital security, etc. A Solidarity Fund grant cannot be used for regranting as this is part of Mama Cash’s Resilience Fund. 
• We will not support work that actively seeks to deny the rights of women, girls, trans and intersex people. We will not support anti-sex work activities, individuals, political parties, government agencies, or religious institutions. 

Mama Cash considers the primary activity of a women’s fund is to make financial grants to support groups, collectives, and individuals organising to defend and advance women’s, girls’, trans people’s and intersex people’s rights. Women’s funds also raise money to do this grantmaking themselves. We acknowledge that there are other definitions of a ‘women’s fund,’ but for Mama Cash and thus in the context of this Solidarity Fund, we require that organisations that identify as women’s funds make financial grants as the primary focus of their work.

We only support women’s fund that are not a programme of a larger entity. Eligible women’s funds must have independent decision-making power over their grants and resource mobilisation. If the women’s funds are not yet independent, they must have concrete plans to become autonomous in the short to medium term of 2-3 years. Autonomy and independence are important to ensure that those leading the fund have final authority in their decisions to ensure they are accountable to the communities they support. 

In order to be eligible for the Solidarity Fund, women’s funds primary mission must be to support women, girls, trans and intersex people in their efforts to uphold their rights through grantmaking. Women’s funds must also have a vision and strategy to challenge and transform unjust power structures. 

Eligible women’s funds can apply for a Solidarity Fund grant individually or as part of a larger collaborative of eligible women’s funds. Applicants cannot submit more than one proposal: if they are interested in multiple collaborations, they will have to choose and submit (or be part of) just one idea. Prospera regional chapters are exempted from this rule, because they serve a large number of funds.  

Any women’s fund eligible for a grant is eligible to participate in this decision-making process, including women’s funds who received Solidarity Fund grants last year, and including those who are applying to the Solidarity Fund, however this is not a requirement. 

Women’s funds do not need to apply separately to participate in the grant application review; they just need to indicate their interest to solidarityfund@mamacash.org. They will need to commit to reviewing at least 10 proposals of 2 pages maximum. The criteria they will use for their review are: 

• The women’s fund’s skills, knowledge, and resources: How will this grant strengthen the women’s fund’s own internal skills, knowledge, resources, and autonomy and increase the fund’s ability to deliver its mission?  
• Importance/timeliness: In the context in which the women’s fund is working, why is this work of great importance, or is there a pressing demand for it now? Will it catalyse change?  
• Solidarity/movement building: Will this work contribute to or strengthen the regional network, women’s funds, or the feminist movement beyond the fund itself? How so?

Application window – During the Solidarity Fund’s grantmaking window – usually in the month Feb/March – applicants submit, by email, a filled-in application form or a video recording, and a filled-in budget form.  Application & budget forms are available in English, Spanish and French.

If you would like to write a grant proposal in another language and have it translated, please contact solidarityfund@mamacash.org

Participatory grantmaking – Any women’s fund eligible for a Solidarity grant is eligible to participate in the review process of Solidarity Fund applications. This includes women’s funds that have submitted an application. Women’s funds interested in reviewing applications need to indicate their interest in doing so before the end of the application window.

Review of Applications – Participating funds review at least 10 applications of approximately 2 pages each during the review period. Applications will be distributed amongst the reviewing funds at random. 

Voting & scoring – Reviewers receive 20 points each to vote on their preferred proposals that they would like to support. Alongside their scores, reviewers provide 2-3 sentences about each proposal they reviewed to give context for their scoring.

Award announcements – All reviewers’ assessments will be aggregated and shared back with applicants, alongside the final ranking.

Grants will be made to the highest ranked applicants for grants of €30,000 each. To ensure geographical diversity, reviewers will be asked to take into account applicants’ geographical locations.

Wonderful that you are interested in participatory grantmaking! We suggest you start with this Grantcraft Guide & resource center.

If you have any additional questions about the Solidarity Fund, solidarityfund@mamacash.org