GFCF grants to support COVID-19 response

The Foundation for Social Transformation distributes food and supplies in Guwahati, India

GFCF partners around the world were at the forefront of community responses to COVID-19: offering immediate relief to the most vulnerable parts of the community; providing accurate and contextual information on quickly-changing situations; and, working across sectors to build bridges and strengthen solidarity. GFCF grantmaking in 2020, 2021 and 2022 is focused on supporting efforts by members of our global network of community philanthropy partners to respond to COVID-19, both in terms of their immediate response but also over the longer-term as they consider ways to bring about lasting positive change in their communities as they #BuildBackBetter. In many cases, our grants are supporting partners to build long-term resilience in their communities, and to strengthen their own abilities to react to future crises. This page will be updated regularly as grants are made, as will our Grants Map. All figures are in USD.

East Asia Pacific

• EcoThailand Foundation 1. $9,000: Coordination of community response to effects of COVID-19 on vulnerable groups in Koh Phangan and Koh Samui, and exploration of a longer-term structure for promoting cooperation, solidarity and local philanthropy etc. 2. $11,800: To support the development of a community tourism network in the Thai Gulf, building a more resilient local economy following COVID-19.
• Harmony Platform (China) $30,000: Community philanthropy development including creation of community foundation mutual aid network in response to COVID-19.
• Indonesia for Humanity $20,000: To build on the pemaknaan approach to learning and measurement, as a way to understand the role of small grants in achieving social transformation goals.
• LIN Center for Community Development $30,000: To raise the visibility of LIN partners and build local resource mobilization skills, to support community philanthropy development in Vietnam.
• Sentrong Pagpapalakas Negritong ng Kultura at Kalikasan – SPNKK (Philippines) $18,860: Strengthening Negrito communities’ collective ability to address critical issues around land tenure and control of natural resources and test a community philanthropy approach.

Europe and Central Asia

• Arkhangelsk Centre of Social Technologies “Garant” (Russia) $19,950: Mobilizing cross-community response to COVID-19 in short and longer-terms.
• Bardejov Community Foundation (Slovakia) $19,920: To build a stronger and more inclusive Bardejov in the wake of COVID-19.
• Bucharest Community Foundation (Romania) $20,000: Bridging grant to enable BCF to deliver its COVID-19 response.
• Bulgarian Fund for Women 1. $20,000: Supporting women’s community leadership and individual giving in light of COVID-19. 2. $20,000: To promote community building, support community leaders and deepen/further develop community philanthropy in Bulgaria as a tool for social change and social justice through BFW’s Community Leadership Programme.
• Covasna Community Foundation (Romania) 1. $20,000: Responding to COVID-19 in Covasna County by expanding programmes around local values and fruit trees. 2. $20,000: Operational and programme support in the context of COVID-19 and its impacts.
• FemFund (Poland) $20,000: Resource mobilization – in Poland and overseas – as a strategy for community resilience and mobilizing constituencies for women’s rights.
• Forum for Civic Iniatives – FIQ (Kosovo) 1. $20,000: Continuing FIQ’s work with informal youth groups, particularly in light of COVID-19. 2. $30,000: Continue FIQ’s work with informal youth groups through its Young Ambassadors programme, and to develop a resource mobilization strategy for FIQ.
• Foundation Community Donation Fund Sliven (Bulgaria) $19,500: Outreach and support to vulnerable groups most affected by COVID-19.
• Foundation Community Donation Fund – Stara Zagora (Bulgaria) $20,000: To support local civil society in the short and long-term in its response to the effects of COVID-19.
• Foundation Step Forward (Serbia) $16,900: To build connections and foster new relationships between different groups, and to increase solidarity in the Zajecar community post COVID-19.
• Gandjabasar Community Foundation (Azerbaijan) $13,420: To run a small grants programme aiming at supporting local civil society’s response to COVID-19.
• Healthy City Community Foundation (Slovakia) $17,000: Strengthening social inclusion and protecting minority rights in the context of COVID-19.
• Local Community Development Foundation Stip (Macedonia) $19,940: Engaging youth groups to build community philanthropy and solidarity in response to challenges associated with COVID-19.
• Moloda Gromada (Ukraine) $19,000: Using the “Smart Interactions” app to coordinate and support COVID-19 response in the Ukraine. 
• Nitra Community Foundation (Slovakia) $20,000: Social inclusion of new communities in the wake of COVID-19.
• Odorheiu Secuiesc Community Foundation (Romania) $20,000: Bridging grant for operational support to OSCF and its COVID-19 response.
• Reconstruction Women’s Fund (Serbia) $20,000: Protecting the rights and well-being of marginalized and vulnerable groups, including rapid response grants, in the context of COVID-19.

Latin America and the Caribbean

• Amigos de San Cristóbal, A.C. (Mexico) $20,000: For strengthening community philanthropy work – through giving circles, research and outreach – to benefit the most vulnerable communities in the Chiapas Highlands.
• Casa Fluminense (Brazil) $20,000: Small grants and other support to grassroots groups and solidarity networks for COVID-19 response in the periphery of Metropolitan Rio de Janeiro.
• ELLAS – Mujeres y Filantropía (Argentina) $19,700: To document the role of grassroots womens groups in Latin America in response to COVID-19.
• Fondo Acción Solidaria A.C. – FASOL (Mexico) $20,000: To document community level responses to COVID-19, including local resource mobilization and solidarity models.
• Fondo Ñeque (Ecuador) $18,060: Start-up activities, including piloting local grantmaking to address needs emerging around COVID-19.
• Fundación Semilla (Bolivia) $20,000: Institutional support, with a focus on building the evidence base for community philanthropy in Bolivia.
• Fundo Agbara (Brazil) $20,000: Institutional support.
• Guanacaste Community Fund (Costa Rica) 1. $20,000: Working with community-based partners to meet short-term needs against the backdrop of COVID-19, while helping create the basis for a more resilient and sustainable local economy in the longer-term. 2. $20,000: Institutional support for domestic resource mobilization and communications.
• Haiti Community Foundation 1. $20,000: Immediate relief work and public information campaign in the Grand’Anse. 2. $20,000: Rebuilding livelihoods in the Grand-Anse in the wake of COVID-19.
• ICom – Instituto Comunitário Grande Florianópolis (Brazil) $24,040: Strengthening community philanthropy for social justice in Florianópolis by building a donor base, and improving ICom’s grantmaking and capacity building practices aimed at grassroots groups and movements.
• Monteverde Community Fund (Costa Rica) 1. $19,115: Participating in immediate COVID-19 emergency responses aimed at reaching the most vulnerable parts of the community, and supporting efforts towards a diversified, durable local economy longer-term. 2. $13,980: Organizational strengthening and alliance building.
• TABÔA Fortalecimento Comunitário (Brazil) $26,000: Strengthen community philanthropy through small grants, capacity strengthening and introduction of the Giving Circle concept.

Middle East North Africa

• Rawa Creative Palestinian Communities Fund $20,000: Documentation, story-telling and advocacy work aimed at highlighting the Rawa model and experiences of participatory grantmaking, particularly in light of COVID-19.
• Tamkeen Community Foundation for Human Development (Morocco) $20,000: To create a virtual story-telling platform that can be used to reach out to new audiences and donors.
• Waqfeyat Al-Maadi Community Foundation (Egypt) $25,000: Rebuilding livelihoods through the Home Factory initiative.

South Asia

• Foundation for Social Transformation (India) 1. $20,040: Targeted support (provision of goods and information on rights, entitlements etc.) to informal sector workers in Guwahati; mobilizing local donors to give. 2. $15,350: Supporting vulnerable families with food relief and providing assistance around vaccine awareness and registration. 3. $23,040: Work with informal groups around rights and entitlement claiming.
• Gramin Evam Nagar Vikas Parishad (GENVP) / Dalit Community Foundation (India) $15,570: Support to vulnerable Dalit communities in Bihar following the second wave of COVID-19.
• Keystone Foundation (India) 1. $20,000: Continuation of efforts to explore and support the development of the community foundation concept with Keystone Foundation’s partners, particularly addressing key issues that have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. 2. $16,000: To support local indigenous groups most affected by COVID-19. 3. $19,540: Continuation of efforts to explore and support the development of the community foundation concept with Keystone Foundation’s partners.
• Nagarik Aawaz (Nepal) $15,000: Support to local vulnerable groups most affected by COVID-19.
• Sindh Community Foundation (Pakistan) $7,000: Conducting an initial feasibility study for building local giving, and organizing pilot fundraising activities.
• Solidarity Foundation (India) $20,000: Support for immediate and longer-term community-based responses to COVID-19 among marginalized sexual minority groups and sex workers.
• Tewa (Nepal) 1. $20,000: Small grants to grassroots women’s groups in Nepal to respond to the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19. 2. $50,000: To support women’s organizations and strengthen volunteer networks, building community resilience during COVID-19.

Sub-Saharan Africa

• Bulsho Fund (Somalia) $55,000: Operationalization of the Fund, including developing its 2022 operational plan.
• Civil Collective (Uganda) 1. $20,000: Responding to COVID-19 with a particular focus on vulnerable groups, and rebuilding livelihoods in the long-term. 2. $25,000: Promoting locally-led development in Eastern Uganda, through consultations with communities and other stakeholders, small grants, research/documentation and study visits.
• CivSource Africa (Uganda) $20,000: To generate conversations on community philanthropy among children through stories, and to create platforms that bring together philanthropists through dialogue on community philanthropy.
• Community Development Foundation Western Cape (South Africa) 1. $20,000: Support to COVID-19 Relief Fund to target most vulnerable members of community in urban centres, farms and fishing villages of the Western Cape. 2. $30,000: Institutional support, including for leadership transition.
• Community Foundation for the Western Region of Zimbabwe $25,000: Operational and COVID-19 programme support.
• DOCKDA Rural Development Agency (South Africa) $20,000: Flexible support for COVID-19 response.
• Earthrise Trust (South Africa) $15,975: Participatory community asset mapping exercise to lay groundwork for an innovative, long-term and holistic development strategy for the community of Naledi Village.
• Fonds pour les Femmes Congolaises (Democratic Republic of the Congo) $35,000: To explore the feasibility of community philanthropy in the DRC and small grants to women’s groups.
• Foundation for Civil Society (Tanzania) 1. $20,000: To document stories of giving in Tanzania during the COVID-19 pandemic. 2. $27,000: To deepen/strengthen new models and approaches of community philanthropy.
• Fundação Micaia (Mozambique) $50,000: To support locally-rooted initiatives that stimulate and raise awareness on community philanthropy, and to support Micaia’s internal grantmaking capacity.
• Grassroots Development Initiatives Foundation-Kenya $19,990: Responding to effects of COVID-19 and building community resilience through community philanthropy in Tharaka Nithi county.
• Initiative for Community Advancement (South Africa) $16,450: To support the incubation of a community foundation in the Bergrivier municipal area, particularly in the aftermath of COVID-19.
• Initiative Pananetugri pour le Bien-être de la Femme (Burkina Faso) $20,000: Mapping of priorities and needs for organizations focusing on women and girls in Francophone West Africa, to inform the work of the new Pananetugri Fund.
• Kabale Municipality Development Foundation (Uganda) 1. $20,000: Fostering community philanthropy in Kabale Municipality, including for COVID-19 response. 2. $10,000: Leveraging KMDF’s community giving work and networks to fundraise for home based medical care for COVID-19 patients in Kabale.
• Kenya Community Development Foundation $50,000: To conduct a mid-term review of KCDF’s strategic plan in the light of COVID-19 and to engage in grassroots grantmaking and resource mobilization.
• Kilimani Project Foundation (Kenya) $25,600: To engage Kilimani residents in issues around urban development.
• Resource Oriented Development Initiatives – RODI (Kenya) $20,000: To strengthen RODI’s organizational capacity in local resource mobilization and community philanthropy interventions.
• Social Change Assistance Trust – SCAT (South Africa) 1. $20,000: To support and document community-based partner organizations’ response to COVID-19 lockdown and impacts on social cohesion. 2. $25,000: Conduct an evaluation of SCAT’s work.
• STAR Ghana Foundation $55,000: Supporting local groups to develop community disaster management plans and models, while building a culture of local giving.
• Taala Foundation (Uganda) $20,000: To increase opportunities for LGBTQ+ communities and allies to drive their own development, using sports as an entryway for activism and solidarity.
• Thubutu Africa Initiatives (Tanzania) $27,220: To assess the potential of community philanthropy as a driver for sustainable change.
• Twerwaneho Listeners’ Club (Uganda) 1. $20,000: Direct relief, community mobilization, including public information campaign and community philanthropy development. 2. $35,500: Scaling up local giving, with a specific focus on mobilizing resources for – and engagement around – human rights issues.
• UHAI-EASHRI (Kenya) $55,000: Post COVID-19 recovery and resilience.
• West Coast Community Foundation (South Africa) $10,000: Operational and programme support for WCCF’s COVID-19 response in rural communities in the West Coast region of the Western Cape.
• XOESE – Le Fonds pour les Femmes Francophones (Togo) $35,000: Small grants and capacity building, including local resource mobilization, for grassroots women’s groups.
• Zambian Governance Foundation $65,880: To promote community financial asset building by supporting communities through financial literacy, mentoring for small businesses, and the creation of community funds.

Western Europe

• Bürgerstiftung Duisburg (Germany) $20,000: Responding to COVID-19 in Duisburg, with a particular focus on vulnerable groups.
• Bürgerstiftung Stuttgart (Germany) $20,000: COVID-19 response with a specific focus on reaching vulnerable communities.
• Fondazione di Comunità del Canavese (Italy) $20,000: To work with migrants and the elderly to establish new community gardens in Canavese, overcoming isolation post COVID-19 lockdown.
• South Sinai Foundation (U.K.) $19,990: To support alternative income generation activities with and for Bedouin communities, especially women.