Deadline: 28 October 2013
Open to: organizations and individuals working to identify, nurture and share innovative and scalable solutions to the challenges facing effective humanitarian assistance
Grant: funding grants from £20,000 to £150,000
Description
The Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF) has announced the launch of the 6th call for large grant proposals. The Fund supports innovative ideas or solutions to a problem facing the delivery of humanitarian aid. Twice every year it seeks large grant proposals to provide funding grants from £75,000 to £150,000.
The Humanitarian Innovation Fund supports organisations and individuals to identify, nurture and share innovative and scalable solutions to the challenges facing effective humanitarian assistance. It works by enabling and supporting humanitarian innovators to move creative ideas through the innovation process; supporting them in building new partnerships with key actors; enabling the lessons from grant funded projects and from analysis of innovation processes in humanitarian contexts to be disseminated more widely and strengthening existing relationships between humanitarian agencies, academics and those in the private sector engaged in innovation processes.
HIF defines “humanitarian aid” as aid and action designed to save lives, alleviate suffering and maintain and protect human dignity during and in the aftermath of emergencies. This definition for humanitarian aid is taken from Global Humanitarian Assistance. The definition excludes any long term development assistance. The definition provides some useful examples of traditional responses to humanitarian crises:
- Material relief assistance and services (shelter, water, medicines etc.);
- Emergency food aid (short-term distribution and supplementary feeding programmes);
- Relief coordination, protection and support services (coordination, logistics and communications).
- Reconstruction relief and rehabilitation (repairing pre-existing infrastructure as opposed to longer-term activities designed to improve the level of infrastructure;
- Disaster prevention and preparedness (disaster risk reduction, early warning systems, contingency stocks and planning).
Grant
The Humanitarian Innovation Fund currently has two funding mechanisms – a small grant facility and a large grant facility – which reflect the stage at which an innovation is at in the innovation process.
The small grant facility is up to £20,000. It is for the following types of projects:
- Recognition of a problem, a challenge, or an obstacle to be overcome; with a corresponding opportunity for innovation. Invention of a solution, or an idea, which helps to address the problem or seize the opportunity.
- Diffusion of the innovation leading to its wider adoption, outside the original setting. This might include various formal and informal communications channels, and may involve the original innovation being continually developed and refined.
The large grant facility is up to £150,000. It is for the following types of projects:
- Development of the innovation by creating practical, actionable plans and guidelines.
- Implementation of the innovation to produce real instances of changed practice, often initially using pilots and then scaling up promising innovations.
Eligibility
The Humanitarian Innovation Fund supports organisations and individuals to identify, nurture and share innovative and scalable solutions to the challenges facing effective humanitarian assistance.
Application
The deadline to submit an ‘Expressions of Interest’ for the HIF large grant facility is 28th October 2013. Initially only Expression of Interest (EoI) has to be submitted online HERE. After reviewing the EoI, HIF will contact potential grantees to submit full proposals. Applications for the large grant facility can ONLY be made online.
For the small grant, please see the website HERE to download the information pack. Please read all the included documentation and send completed small grant applications to applications@humanitarianinnovation.org, following the instructions outlined in the application pack. The large grant information pack is also available on the same website.
Submit your questions to the organizers at info@humanitarianinnovation.org.
For more details, please see the official website HERE.
