About the Grants Program

The Fund for Global Human Rights provides grants to non-governmental, non-profit organizations working to promote respect for human rights in the countries and regions in which they are based.  To accomplish this, the Fund for Global Human Rights focuses in six regions of the world (South Asia, West Africa, African Great Lakes, North Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America) and has crafted specific regional strategies designed to make the most impact with limited resources (see links below for more information).  The Fund acts as an ally of activists in strengthening human rights movements and believes in maintaining a long-term focus in each of the regions and countries where it operates.

The Fund's grants bring financial stability to human rights groups and help organizations take their work to the next level in terms of visibility and impact. For example:

• Women in India used a $25,000 grant to launch a campaign to promote the use of rape kits to gather essential evidence and improve prospects for justice.

• Indigenous people in rural, southern Mexico are exposing ongoing human rights abuses by military and police forces with grants from the Fund.

• In Sierra Leone and Liberia, grantees are challenging impunitiy by private security forces by convincing the governments to disarm and hold accountable these guards who are responsible for violent attacks against local communities.

• Fund grantee the Association of Female Lawyers of Liberia led a successful campaign to secure legal recognition of women's inheritance rights.

• Fund grantee Elige helped lead a campaign that secured a major victory for reproductive rights when the Mexican Supreme Court upheld a law decriminalizing abortion in the nation's capital.

  
  

Grants typically range from between $5,000 and $30,000 and are awarded through a competitive and transparent grants process. Informal advisors, board members, and grantees themselves all play an essential role in identifying and recommending new and emerging human rights groups that may be eligible for grants. Fund for Global Human Rights staff visit each region about once per year and monitor grants throughout the year.

Since 2002, the Fund for Global Human Rights has awarded over $15 million to more than 200 human rights organizations in sixteen countries.

Read more about recent grantee victories here.

Read about our priorities and grants programs in the following countries:

Pakistan, India, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Uganda, Mexico, Guatemala, Morocco, Tunisia,  Algeria, the Philippines, and Thailand.  

» Read about how you can help.

» Find out more about our financial practices
» Apply for a Grant