Criteria/Do I fit?

Before you apply for a Rapid Response Grant, review the Categories, Criteria and Things to Know sections below. Use these guidelines to decide if your proposal will fulfill the requirements of our Rapid Response Grantmaking. You can also take a look at our searchable database of grants and our interactive map of grantee to learn more about what actions we have funded in the past.

You have the option to request that your application remain confidential.

Categories

Urgent Action Fund makes grants in three categories. To receive a Rapid Response Grant, your proposal must fall under at least one of these categories:

  1. Responses to armed conflict, escalating violence, or politically volatile environments.
  2. Potentially precedent-setting legal or legislative actions, or actions that aim to protect a precedent that has already been set.
  3. Protection and security of women human rights defenders. Note that Evacuation Grants fall under this category. Evacuation Grants are designed for women’s human rights activists who are in urgent need of relocation funding because of threats, persecution and/or an extreme security situation. If you wish to apply for an Evacuation Grant, please read the Criteria below, and use the separate Evacuation Grant Application.

As you can see, these categories are very broad. Within these categories, you may be working on peace-building, environmental justice, land rights, sex worker rights, LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights, or many other issues. See our Grantee Profiles to read about grantees who are working on issues such as these.

 

Criteria 

Regardless of which category your proposal falls under, grant proposals must meet all five of these criteria:

  1. Strategic – the action promotes the advancement of women’s human rights. (Urgent Action Fund grants are intended to enable short-term interventions in the course of long-term strategies for advancing women’s human rights. Urgent Action Fund provides grants to groups who already have a strategy developed or to coalitions of groups responding together to a crisis or new opportunity.)
  2. Unanticipated and Time Urgent – the specific event or situation your organization is responding to was unanticipated and action must happen quickly to be effective.
  3. Sustainable – the group is able to carry out the proposed action effectively and can secure funding for future work related to the strategy.
  4. Supported – the group has the support of others involved in women’s human rights or related fields, locally or globally.
  5. Woman/Trans-led – women/transgender people must be the primary decision-makers in the organization, group, or action.

We do NOT fund:

  • Development projects
  • Natural disaster relief
  • Humanitarian aid
  • Travel to conferences
  • General support
  • Individuals
  • Bridge funding (to fill a funding gap)
  • Previously planned or long-term projects (3 months or greater)
  • Unfortunately, we are not able to provide funding for these important activities.

Things to know about applying to Urgent Action Fund:

  • We accept grant applications in any language.
  • We will respond to your request within 72 hours; however, proposals in languages other than Arabic, English, Spanish, Russian, or French may require additional time for translation.
  • We accept grant requests anytime.
  • Grant requests can be up to $5,000 USD
  • Once a grant has been approved, funds can usually be delivered within a week.
  • To apply for funding in Africa or Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, see links below for Urgent Action Fund-Africa and Urgent Action Fund-Latin America. For all other regions and countries, use the application provided on this site. (For more information on the locations funded by Urgent Action Fund, visit our FAQs.)
  • Any requests based on the continent of Africa should be sent to Urgent Action Fund-Africa.
  • All requests based in Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean should be submitted to Urgent Action Fund-Latin America.
  • FAU-AL se hará cargo de todas las solicitudes provenientes de América Latina y el Caribe Hispanohablante. Le agradecemos visitar para más información: www.fondoaccionurgente.org.co
  • Still have questions? Click here.