Seed Funding

Currently there exists an underdeveloped market of resources and support to launch and spread grassroots social ideas among the most marginalized communities. Social ideas do not spread nearly as quickly as news or business innovation. Change agents face challenges in scaling up efficiently. Further, there is a lack of support services to initiate, evaluate and grow the most effective ideas.

Global Grassroots offers seed funding grants to teams who have graduated from our Conscious Social Change training program and are eager to advance their social change projects benefiting women and girls. We do not entertain unsolicited grant proposals, as we have discovered how essential our training and capacity building work is to the sustainability and eventual success of all our projects — especially given we are working with the most vulnerable populations of women, some of whom have less than a 3rd grade education and must handle multiple levels of challenges including poverty, health and discrimination.

Global Grassroots is not a microfinance entity. We do not provide loans, we only provide seed grants for the initial start-up costs of our chosen ventures, so that they may begin their change work without the burden of any debt. These locally-designed social ventures are not small businesses, but are instead small non-profits or business-social hybrids driven by a social purpose to address a priority issue facing women, such as domestic violence, water access or illiteracy. Our seed grants average $3000, though some projects involving construction may have start-up funding needs closer to $5000.

New ventures are evaluated for Global Grassroots funding based on defined investment criteria. Most importantly, Global Grassroots seeks ideas with a measurable impact significantly greater than traditional solutions. Priority is also given to ideas that are able to rely upon a local citizen base of support and/or generate self-sustaining sources of revenue. Following are our specific target investment criteria for seed funding:

• The project team leader, and two additional team members, must have attended and graduated from Global Grassroots' Conscious Social Change training course
  
  
• The venture must be locally designed by the project team
  
  
• The idea must have a clearly stated mission, vision and theory of change which aims to address a core, systematic social issue impacting women (note: Global Grassroots does not support small businesses or craft-based income generating projects)
  
  
• The venture must have clearly defined goals, a sensible short and long-term operations plan and a detailed budget outlining resource needs
  
  
• The venture must seek locally-based support through broad-based strategic partnerships and employ creative strategies to ensure all resource needs are met and longer-term sustainability is probable
  
  
• The idea should be able to clearly measure its social impact and must have a definitive methodology for reporting progress through specific benchmarks and metrics of success
  
  
• The venture must have the commitment of the project team leader, as well as involve either an implementation team and/or a board of directors who are individually and collectively responsible for the project's social purpose
  
  
• The team must agree to adopt a code of conduct concerning bribery and corruption
  
  
• The team must agree to a grant award letter which will outline the project's proposed goals for social impact, and be willing to adhere to Global Grassroots' 12 months of reporting requirements

Read about our Adviosry Support program