Fund for Global Human Rights
/OVERVIEW: The Fund for Global Human Rights awards grants for work on a wide range of issues related to human rights, including women’s rights, migrants’ rights, LGBTQ rights and children’s rights. A large part of its work centers around assisting and defending human rights activists and workers who suffer from or are at risk of harassment and violence. It primarily supports organizations operating in Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.
IP TAKE: The Fund for Global Human Rights aims to remain flexible and responsive in its grantmaking. It overwhelmingly supports grassroots organizations that possess the comprehensive knowledge of the needs of the communities in which they work and have the capacity for “accelerating progress on the ground.”
Despite its openness and support, this is not an accessible funder. You’ll have to contact its office to learn more about how it chooses who to fund and how its specific programs are evolving in the future.
PROFILE: Founded in 2003, the Fund for Global Human Rights seeks to “move human rights forward by providing resources and tools to the people and organizations on the ground who have real potential to generate positive change.” The fund is specifically interested in the human rights space, but it does not limit its grantees to thematic restrictions—as long as its grantees work to “challenge the structures of power,” to advance human rights in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Latin America, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. The fund does not award region-wide grants in its geographic areas of interest. Rather, it concentrates its efforts on supporting organizations working in specific countries within those regions. Its current issue areas are civic power, children’s and youth rights, climate justice, labor rights, legal empowerment, LGBTQ+ rights, migrants’ rights and women’s rights.
Grants for Human Rights, Violence Prevention, Women and Girls, LGBTQ, Immigrants, Refugees and Climate Change
The Fund for Global Human Rights works to support global security, human rights and violence prevention across all of its grantmaking areas.
Grants for civic power mainly support grassroots activists as they push back against repressive governments, corporations and others. Funding focuses on threatened organizations and organizers.
The children’s and youth rights funding area helps community and youth-led organizations “build their power and change the world.” Strategies of this program include increasing access to health and education services, eliminating violence and abuse, reforming “punitive laws and systems” and supporting collaborations between youth-led groups and more experienced mentors.
Climate justice grantmaking focuses on community-based strategies and organizations that work toward sustainable solutions to climate change issues around the world. Strategies here include holding corporate and governmental stakeholders accountable, protecting the land rights of Indigenous peoples, developing and expanding sustainable agriculture and food systems and supporting an protecting the work of environmental activists.
Grants stemming from the fund’s labor rights area maintains the goals of protecting the rights of workers and expanding access to labor markets toward “a just and equal future.” A key component of this work is the expansion of work and opportunity to previously oppressed or excluded populations, including women, minorities and LGBTQ+ people. Other areas of interest include expanding “formal protections” for workers through labor unions and similar organizations and extending protections and rights to informal, temporary and contract workers in diverse fields.
The fund’s legal empowerment grantmaking focuses on communities and peoples whose human rights are violated by the justice systems under which they live. Grants stemming from this program generally provide multi-year support for grassroots groups fighting to end systemic injustice and improve the lives of people traditionally excluded or overlooked by existing legal systems.
LGBTQ+ rights grants go to organizations promoting the social, economic and political rights of LGBTQ+ populations around the world, often addressing issues in the most repressed areas. Recent areas of specific focus include improving healthcare access, safety, legal protection, economic empowerment, legal support and “building community support.”
In the area of migrants’ rights the fund works broadly with organizations that support migrants’ access to services, legal support. The fund also given to organizations that protect migrants from arbitrary detentions and fraudulent services and document procurement.
Finally, the fund’s grantmaking for women’s rights has recently focused on women’s health, economic opportunity, legal equality and violence prevention.
Important Grant Details
Grant amounts typically range from $5,000 to $30,000; however, the fund has been known to go slightly above that threshold on occasion. The fund generally aims to be a long-term funder, and to provide unrestricted funding and multi-year support to its grantees. The Fund for Global Human Rights also offers emergency and donor-advised grants. It primarily supports organizations operating in Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. A significant portion of this funder’s work supports organizations working in overlapping areas of interest. For information on past grantmaking see, the fund’s news page.
The Fund for Global Human Rights does not accept unsolicited proposals at this time but provides an email address, phone number and newsletter sign-up on its contact page.
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