Commonwealth Foundation Grant 2026-2027 (up to £15,000) – YOA

Deadline: October 26, 2026

Applications are open for the Commonwealth Foundation Grant 2026-2027. The Foundation’s grants programme helps civil society throughout the Commonwealth—together with grassroots communities and artistic actors—to advance significant social, cultural and political change.

They help initiatives that search change via constructive engagement with governments and different resolution-makers and/or via inventive advocacy: the intentional use of inventive practices to affect public discourse, coverage, behaviours or resolution-making.

This yr, the Foundation is increasing its funding provide to create new alternatives for civil society networks, coalitions, alliances and collectives, constructing on a number of years of help for grassroots communities and artistic organisations.

Grants

They provide funding via two complementary grant streams:

• Individual Organisation Grants: For eligible not-for-revenue civil society organisations, together with inventive organisations, delivering standalone initiatives. Grants can be found from £15,000 to £30,000 per yr for up to two years.
• Collective Action Grants: For eligible networks, coalitions, alliances and platforms of civil society actors, together with inventive collectives, working collectively to strengthen participation and collective motion. Grants can be found from £15,000 to £20,000 per yr for up to two years.

Eligibility

Individual Organisations Grants

• Open to not-for-revenue civil society organisations and artistic organisations registered in eligible Commonwealth Foundation member international locations.
• Applicants will need to have been registered and working for at the very least three years, with a minimal of three years’ demonstrable expertise related to the proposed challenge and our strategic affect areas. This might embrace constructive engagement between civil society and resolution-makers, or utilizing arts and artistic expression to affect narratives, coverage or public discourse.
• Applicants also needs to have important expertise of working within the communities the place their proposed challenge can be delivered.
• The proposed challenge should, at minimal, be carried out within the applicant organisation’s nation of registration. Projects might also be carried out in different eligible international locations. Multi-country initiatives should exhibit sturdy native participation by organisations, communities and different related actors in every nation of implementation.
• The applicant organisation’s common annual earnings over the previous two years have to be lower than £2.5 million. The requested grant should not exceed 70% of the applicant organisation’s complete annual earnings, averaged over the previous two years.
• Organisations which are at present implementing a Commonwealth Foundation grant, or have lately accomplished a grant however haven’t but acquired their closing fee, are usually not eligible to apply.

Collective Action Grants

• All proposals should search to advance at the very least one of many Foundation’s strategic affect areas: freedom of expression, financial inclusion, or local weather and environmental justice.
• Proposals should additionally exhibit how gender and intersectionality have knowledgeable their design and can be built-in all through implementation.
• They welcome purposes that suggest the usage of inventive advocacy to advance change. Creative organisations making use of for an Individual Organisation Grant, and artistic organisations or inventive collectives making use of for a Collective Action Grant, ought to submit a small collection of earlier or present work demonstrating their inventive observe and relevance to the challenge.
• Projects are anticipated to start between 1 August 2027 and 30 September 2027.

Application

Click here to apply

For extra info, go to Commonwealth Foundation Grant.