The U.S. Embassy Abuja Public Affairs Section (PAS) invites applications for a funding opportunity for the John Paul Usman Award for Civic Leadership. This is a program statement, outlining our funding priorities, strategic foci, and the procedures for submitting requests for funding.
The purpose of this grant is to memorialize the late John Paul Usman, 2016 Mandela Washington Fellow, by funding project(s) submitted by YALI Network members from Nigeria focusing on his areas of interest:
- Children’s rights issues
- Peace building.
Worth of Award
- Funding Instrument Type: Fixed amount award
Floor of Individual Award Amounts: N500,000
Ceiling of Individual Award Amounts: N1,500,000 - Project and Budget Periods: Grant projects must be completed before September 30, 2017.
Applicants should consider their budgets carefully and submit a budget commensurate with their project goals.
Eligibility
PAS encourages applications from Nigeria YALI Network members or their organizations located in Nigeria including:
- Registered not-for-profit and civil society/non-governmental organizations with at least two years of programming experience;
- Individuals with two years of not-for-profit, project management, or education; experience.
This award is NOT open to alumni of the Mandela Washington Fellowship program or their organizations.
Grant proposals must demonstrate how projects support the thematic areas of Children’s rights issues and Peacebuilding. Any project outside these areas will not be considered.
Additional activities not eligible for funding include, but are not limited to:
- Social welfare projects;
- Individual travel to conferences;
- Construction projects;
- Completion of activities for projects begun with other funds;
- Projects that are inherently political in nature or that contain the appearance of partisanship/support to individual or single party electoral campaigns; and
- Political party activities.
- Public diplomacy grant funding from the U.S. government may not be used for any commercial, for-profit activity or business operations. All events, conferences, workshops, training, or other engagement activities must be free of charge to participants and audiences.
Authorizing statutes for the funding opportunity are:
- Fulbright-Hays Act, which allows the U.S. Department of State to use funds for the purpose of supporting international exchanges that address issues of mutual interest to the United State.
- Smith-Mundt Act, which specifies the terms in which the U.S. government can engage global audiences
How to Apply
- Proposals should be submitted online to U.S. Embassy Abuja at the following email address: [email protected] using the attached proposal and budget templates.
- Applicants are also required to fill out the attached SF-424 form (Individuals and Corporates) and submit with their application.
- Applications are accepted in English only.
- Final grant agreements will be concluded in English.
- Applications that do not use the proposal and budget templates and do not submit the SF-424 will not be considered.
- The application form requires a DUNS number, a unique nine-digit identification number. DUNS Number assignment is free for organizations required to register with the federal government for grants. Begin the process here.
- SAM Registration: Successful applicants would be required to register on the System for Award Management (SAM) before accessing funds. SAM registration is not required before application submission.
Review and Selection Process
Each application submitted under this announcement will be evaluated and rated on the basis of the evaluation criteria outlined below. The criteria listed are designed to assess the quality of the proposed project and to determine the likelihood of its success. The criteria are closely related and are considered as a whole in judging the overall quality of an application. Applications will be reviewed on the basis of their completeness, coherence, clarity and attention to detail.
- Organizational Capacity: The organization has expertise in its stated field and PAS is confident of its technical capacity to undertake the project.
- Goals and Objectives: Goals and objectives are clearly stated and the project approach is likely to provide maximum impact in achieving the proposed results.
- Embassy Priority: The applicant has clearly described how stated goals are related to and support the award’s priority areas.
- Sustainability: Project activities will continue to have positive impact after the end of the project.
- Feasibility: Analysis of the project’s economic, organizational, and technical feasibility. This is related to the project approach, budget items requested, and technical/human resource capacity of the organization.
- Budget: The budget justification is both reasonable and realistic in relation to the proposed activities and anticipated results. Grants will be awarded to programs with the highest impact per dollar spent.
- Monitoring and Evaluation Plan: The applicant demonstrates it is able to measure program success against key indicators and provide milestones to indicate progress toward goals outlined in the proposal. The project includes a systematic recording and periodic analysis of selected information on the project activities.
Deadline: Proposals will be accepted until April 14, 2017 and with positive responses issued by April 30, 2017. Depending on the response, U.S. Embassy Abuja will attempt to notify those proposals not selected.
Click here for more details and to apply