Project Development Process

After completion of the classroom portion of the Conscious Change Academy, teams are eligible for hands-on project development support. If they meet our investment criteria for social impact and sustainability, they are also eligible for a seed grant for their initial start-up costs and a further 12 months of high-engagement support.

During the project development phase, our local staff works with each project team of graduates for three to six months to facilitate the design and planning process for launch. This allows us to ensure that the project:

• is designed to be self-sufficient and financially sustainable long-term,
  
  
• has measurable goals and objectives,
  
  
• will address a root cause of the underlying issue to create systemic, transformational change,
  
  
• has a feasible operating and financial structure,
  
  
• has the organizational structure necessary to carry out the proposed activities, and
  
  
• meets all our target investment criteria.

During this timeframe, we also evaluate the capacity of our teams to apply the skills they learned during our training program, determine where additional training may be necessary, ascertain their level of commitment to their social purpose and facilitate the development of their final social venture plan or grant proposal.

It is important to note that Global Grassroots believes strongly that our role is to serve only as a facilitator. We do not impose our values, our social issue priorities or our solutions. Instead, we coach each team in their social issue diagnosis, the crafting of their theory of change and their organizational development to support their process of informed decision-making. Where helpful, we also share best practices and portfolios of social innovations that may be adopted and adapted for use by our project teams.

At the end of the day, we embrace innovation and learning through experimentation and risk-taking, and value the potency of local initiation and ownership in and of itself, even if implementation may not always be perfect. We honor that the fact that for our women, even to be willing to advance social change and women's rights in their communities is often a courageous and radical act.

Read about Seed Funding