The Baring Foundation, in partnership with the Legal Education and Esmée Fairbairn Foundations, has re-opened two funds under its Strengthening the Voluntary Sector programme. These funds aim to support registered UK charities to use the law and human rights based approaches effectively in their work.
Funding is available through the following two funding streams:
Training, Education and Capacity Building – Seed funding grants of up to £30,000 over a six month – two year period to support organisations to understand how their objectives can be achieved through use of the law or human rights based approaches.
Priority will be given to projects that provide:
- Capacity building for organisations.
- Capacity building for collaborations and partnerships.
- Training and education.
Applied Projects – Grants of up to £150,000 are available for projects that last for approximately three years. Grants will be awarded for the following types of activity:
- Tackling discrimination and disadvantage directly by:
- Creating new opportunities to use the law or human rights based approaches to address a particular form of discrimination or disadvantage
- Harnessing existing, or developing new, legal capacity or human rights expertise on a specific area (eg homelessness or mental health) or using a place-based approach to build links with community organisations and front line providers, supporting organisations to recognise and tackle problems with legal or human rights based solutions.
- Safeguarding the freedom of purpose, action and voice of the sector by:
- Developing legal or human rights based approaches to support the independence of the voluntary sector.
- Applying the law or a human rights based approach to support organisations to scrutinise public sector decision making or develop and enhance advocacy and campaigns.
The Foundation is running two webinar sessions during which potential applicants can ask questions. These sessions will be held on 16 November 2016 and 13 December 2016. Details of how to join these will be available on the Baring Foundation website from 3 November 2016.
The deadline for applications is 23 January 2017 (5pm).
Strengthening the voluntary sector