Call for expression of interest: Love Alliance is seeking a Consultant/Team to document diverse Participatory Grantmaking Documentation (€17.500)
Aidsfonds on behalf of the Love Alliance is seeking a consultant or team of consultants to document the different participatory grantmaking models used in the Love Alliance, and produce five different products including visuals for public dissemination.
About the Love Alliance
The Love Alliance(externe link, opent in nieuw venster), a five-year programme (2021-2025), is based on an unwavering commitment to protecting, promoting and fulfilling sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) globally, unifying people living with HIV, people who use drugs, sex workers and LGBTIQ+ people, and amplifying the diversity of voices in these communities. The Love Alliance invests in movement building to ensure capable, inclusive, influential, and mutually supportive key population movements in an unrestricted civic space. Together, we advocate for adequate levels of funding and for taking truly human rights-based programmes to scale. We take this opportunity to prioritise and invest in challenging the structural barriers of underfunding, criminalisation, discrimination and exclusion of us in all our diversity.
Funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Love Alliance brings together thought leaders, grantmakers and global leaders in HIV and SRHR advocacy.* The partnership is active in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Morocco and at a global and regional level.
*Love Alliance partners: GALZ(externe link, opent in nieuw venster), SANPUD(externe link, opent in nieuw venster), Sisonke(externe link, opent in nieuw venster), UHAI EASHRI(externe link, opent in nieuw venster), ARASA(externe link, opent in nieuw venster), ISDAO(externe link, opent in nieuw venster), GNP+(externe link, opent in nieuw venster) and Aidsfonds(externe link, opent in nieuw venster).
Participatory grant-making in the Love Alliance
The Love Alliance is governed by the Strategic Board, consisting of representatives of the eight Alliance partners. The Strategic Board is advised by the Activist Advisory Committee, an independent expert and community-led advisory body. Since the inception of the Love Alliance, the governance, grant-making and monitoring and evaluation of the programme all emphasize civil society participation and leadership.
The Alliance uses participatory grant-making as a way to shift the decision-making power regarding where the funding goes from donors– those who hold the money- to communities– those who benefit from the funding. Participatory grant-making involves communities in all aspects of grantmaking, from application to decision-making. The process is open, simple, and transparent, helping to build social movements and making funding more accessible to underserved populations. As part of participatory grant-making, communities review applications and provide funding advice, while the grantmaking organisation remains responsible for due diligence and grants management.
The Love Alliance works with four regional grantmakers who each employ their own model of participatory grant-making to ensure communities are at the centre of funding decisions. Collectively, grantmakers use an adaptive approach that responds to contexts and needs, focusing on capacity strengthening, movement building, and advocacy. This includes providing core, flexible, multi-year funding within an agreed grant range. A key aspect is identifying cross-learning opportunities and capacity needs during grant selection, aligning strategies on grant types, terms, and support levels. Additionally, there is an ongoing exchange and learning among grantmakers within the Love Alliance to build a community of practice.
The mid-term evaluation of the Love Alliance evidenced that the different grantmaking models in the Love Alliance build on the feedback of community leaders in their selection panels of applications, actively involving communities in decision-making processes. Furthermore, participatory grant-making and capacity strengthening are interconnected in the Love Alliance, where financial support (grants) and non-financial support (capacity strengthening and movement building) have increased the institutional capacity of Love Alliance partners.
Objectives of the consultancy
The Love Alliance is looking for a consultant or team of consultants to develop five products with a focus on participatory grantmaking. The first product will be the executive summary that describes our grantmaking and summarises the four different regional grantmaking stories.
The Love Alliance participatory grant-making documentation objectives are:
- Describe how participatory grantmaking takes place in the Love Alliance per region (East Africa, North Africa, Southern Africa and West Africa).
- Showcase the impact of participatory grant-making on shifting the power and democratizing grant-making.
- Visualise the impact of participatory grantmaking among community-led organisations that are funded through these processes.
- Provide arguments to promote participatory grant-making as a best practice to move funding in a restrictive environment.
- Provide arguments to promote participatory grant-making processes and flexible funding as a best practice for funding community-led organisations and community-led responses with other donors.
The target audience
The end deliverables will be used to target public and private grantmakers, donor governments and private funders. By demonstrating the impact of participatory grant-making the Love Alliance aims to highlight the importance of continued investments in community-led interventions.
The approach
The approach to the assignment will be agreed upon with Aidsfonds, but inthe basis content will be provided through a desk review, conversations with Love Alliance grant-makers and in-depth interviews with members of the regional grants committees and, in individual cases, national advocacy partners.
The consultant or team of consultants are expected to familiarise themselves with the project by reviewing reports such as the mid-term review report and other relevant resources such as the governance statuses. These reports will provide the consultant with information needed to provide a summarised overview of the participatory-grantmaking models used within the Love Alliance.
The regional stories will be collected and further defined in collaboration with the regional grantmakers.
Deliverables
The consultant is expected to deliver five products, an executive summary on grantmaking within the Love Alliance and four different stories on the impact of our regional grantmaking. For the regional products different media can be used, for example a visual story, an animation or an opinion piece. The actual format of the stories will be agreed upon with the regional grantmakers.
- East Africa: on how emergency grantmaking takes place and how, in a restrictive environment, we can work community centered and ensure funds are channeled safely to our communities.
- North Africa: on how participatory grantmaking is implemented for the first time specifically for key population communities, and the impact this has on the movement, and on members of the regional grants committees and partners.
- West Africa: on how participatory grantmaking shifts the power dynamics in grantmaking and how participatory grantmaking empowers community members that are part of the regional grants committees.
- Southern Africa: on why participatory grantmaking works well in a region with a long history of grantmaking (e.g. on the impact of organisational development, movement building, power perspective and how it translates in a dual role).
The executive summary is meant as the product that ties the four regional grantmaking stories together. The format in which the summary is presented should align with the format used for the regional grantmaking stories, enabling the Love Alliance to present the products both as a package and as single products. In the summary a description of grantmaking in the Love Alliance, the impact of grantmaking and why participatory grantmaking is important to invest in.
Profile of the candidate
- Demonstrated experience in storytelling as a tool to capture and describe impact and strategies.
- Strong analytical skills to synthesize, draw critical insights, and present stories in creative ways.
- Strong communication skills to relay new concepts clearly, engagingly, and helpfully.
- Affinity with communities of the Love Alliance (Sex Workers, LGBTIQ+ and people who use drugs communities) to accentuate the important elements of change.
Timeline and budget
The total budget for this opportunity is €17.500 excluding VAT. The consultancy is expected to start March 2025.
The draft set of the deliverables is expected to be ready for presentation to Alliance partners for feedback by the 16th of May. Following the first feedback round, a second draft is expected by the 30th of May. The final deliverable is expected on the 18th of June 2025.
How to apply
Please send your expression of interest, including an overview of the requested fee for services, and examples of prior writing of stories of change and impact, to: [email protected] with the reference “Consultancy Love Alliance Participatory Grantmaking Models” before the 12th of March 2025.
If you have any questions on this consultancy, please reach out to Soraya Bouwmeester: [email protected].
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