India, Nepal and Sri Lanka
For Grant Seekers
Ford Foundation grant funds are given to organizations such as universities, governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations. Grants to individuals are rarely made. In those unique instances, support to individuals is limited to activities related to the foundation's program interests and cannot be funded by a grant to an organization.
Regional Support
The foundation's New Delhi office provides support solely for educational, scientific, literary and charitable activities. Grants can be made for specific projects or for general support of an organization whose work closely parallels the foundation's program interests. All grants are made on the basis of the merit of the proposals and their potential contribution to the advancement of the our regional program objectives.
We no longer fund projects in higher education, microfinance, the arts, HIV/AIDS and international cooperation and security. In addition, our office, in keeping with the foundationwide policy, does not award undergraduate or graduate scholarships; make grants for purely personal needs; and, in general, does not fund requests related to medicines or medical service delivery, or emergency relief.
Who May Apply
Any legally constituted organization or individual is eligible to receive a foundation grant. Indian organizations that do not have a Foreign Currency Regulation Act number will need to receive prior permission from the government of India before a grant agreement can be signed.
Initiatives
Promoting Transparent, Effective and Accountable Government
What We Fund
We support efforts to secure greater transparency and accountability in government institutions, policies and programs, particularly those pertaining to marginalized groups such as adivasi, slum dwellers, women and religious minorities.
We provide funding for advocacy to institutionalize greater citizen oversight of government policies and programs.
Our advocacy grants focus on the use of innovative transparency and accountability tools such as citizen participation in budget work, right to information requests, community mobilization and social audits.
Limited funding is available for action research linking transparency, accountability and effectiveness and for dissemination of civil society experiments on accountability.
Additional Selection Criteria
We do not provide funding for local government (panchayat) institutions or for pilot projects whose intended impacts are purely local.
Expanding Livelihood Opportunities for Poor Households
What We Fund
We support projects with the potential to link a large number of producers, farmers or artisans in rural areas with the regional, national and international markets on a sustainable basis.
We support approaches—such as value chains that link the private sector, the government and producer institutions that result in increased incomes for the producer.
We selectively support intermediary institutions—that strengthen livelihood-promoting institutions, create knowledge, build the field of livelihood promotion, and work with governments at the state- and centre-level to advance related policies that benefit the poor.
Additional Selection Criteria
We no longer support initiatives in microfinance, including Self Help Group (SHG) promotion and training; loans and grants to SHG promoting institutions, federations and microfinance institutions (MFIs), capacity building of MFIs; and micro-insurance and remittance projects. We also do not fund vocational/educational skill-building programs for men and women in rural and urban India. Nor do we fund individual livelihood projects that have limited local impact and do not demonstrate sustainability and the potential to be scaled up.
Expanding Community Rights to Natural Resources
What We Fund
We primarily support civil society efforts to:
- Improve the implementation of existing government programs, such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee System (NREGS), that aim to build natural resource assets in support of rainfed agriculture
- Generate research or pilot-based evidence to support policy advocacy aimed at enhancing public investments in rainfed agriculture
Additional Selection Criteria
We rarely fund work that does not connect explicitly with regional or national policy debates about rainfed agriculture. We also do not provide support for Joint Forest Management, eco-tourism, biodiversity conservation, waste management, environmental education, work on air and water pollution or climate change.
Advancing Economic and Social Rights
What We Fund
This new program will help create and strengthen effective institutions and mechanisms for people to demand and access their economic and social rights without discrimination. While priorities are still evolving, we expect to support:
- Work that establishes standards, and leads to improvements in policies and practices, through monitoring, documentation, applied research and advocacy
- High-impact public interest litigation as well as effective use of ordinary legal remedies
- Public hearings and other community mobilization activities
- Information dissemination and legal awareness
- Capacity building of key stakeholder groups and institutions
- Protection of human rights defenders
- Strengthening regional and international human rights mechanisms
- Pilot projects demonstrating innovative thinking and practices
Additional Selection Criteria
We do not fund work that is narrow or limited in scale and impact. In addition, we do not support the following:
- Direct service delivery
- Work on issues related to civil, political or cultural rights
- Violence related work, including gender-based violence, caste-based atrocities and communal violence
- Work related to civil and criminal justice systems
- Political/legislative lobbying of any kind
Strengthening Human Rights Worldwide
What We Fund
This initiative supports flagship organizations in their efforts to develop and strengthen their global programming to promote the rights of the poorest and most marginalized. Creativity and innovation are encouraged.
Additional Selection Criteria
We do not make grants to human rights NGOs advocating for strengthened enforcement of human rights standards. We do not give direct support to governmental and intergovernmental institutions under this initiative. We also do not provide funds for human rights education.
Youth Sexuality, Reproductive Health, and Rights
What We Fund
This new initiative will focus on helping excluded youth from urban and rural areas fulfill their aspirations and achieve better outcomes. While priorities are still under review, we anticipate supporting advocacy, research and communications efforts, among other areas. We expect our grant making to:
- Improve sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) outcomes for adolescents
- Empower and equip young people to be able to deal with gender barriers and inequities
- Explore how parents, community members and religious leaders can facilitate better life-opportunities for youth
- Mobilize civil society to advocate for youth-friendly policies and programs that demonstrate clear outcomes
- Help government agencies increase access to gender-sensitive and adolescent-friendly SRHR services
- Develop creative content to promote gender equity for young people
- Leverage and bring to scale critical work on adolescent SRHR issues
Additional Selection Criteria
We do not support the following activities:
- Work on HIV/AIDS
- Education and schooling programs
- Scholarship programs
- Sexuality research
- Sex-selection and girl-child issues
- Child sexual abuse
- Trafficking of young girls and boys
- Welfare and charity programs for youth
- Service delivery programs
Good Neighbor Committee
The New Delhi Good Neighbor Committee was established to strengthen the foundation's ties to neighborhood organizations working locally on issues related to our mission. The committee accepts proposals for limited, short-term grants from organizations with Foreign Currency Regulation Act numbers only.
The Good Neighbor Committee currently supports projects focusing on senior citizens in Delhi and the National Capital Region, with special emphasis on the homeless in retirement homes and slums. Grants have a maximum budget of $30,000.
To Apply for a Grant
Follow these steps:
- Review the Initiatives most relevant to your work.
- Read our Grant Application Guide, which describes our grant-making process.
- If you determine that your work aligns with our priorities, submit a Grant Inquiry. (While we welcome submissions, please keep in mind that our funds are limited in relation to the large number of worthwhile inquiries we receive. In a typical year, less than 1 percent of unsolicited inquiries result in a grant.)
Please Note:
It is important that you use our grant inquiry form—and refrain from contacting program officers directly. Given the volume of inquiries we receive, this allows us to log, track and respond quickly to your application.
Fellowships
The vast majority of foundation grants go to organizations. Historically, we have provided a very limited number of fellowship opportunities for individuals, including the Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program (IFP).
Unfortunately, IFP is no longer accepting applications. The final cohort of fellows has been selected.
The foundation does not have any other active regional fellowship opportunities at this time.
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