Proposals are invited for the Pulitzer Center Civil Society Micro-Grant 2025. and stimulate collaboration. For this reason, Pulitzer Center is launching an initiative aimed at supporting civil society projects that can feed into the conversations they hope to have at COP 30 in Brazil. Apply now!
About Pulitzer Center Civil Society Micro-Grant
Opportunity Details
Climate and environmental issues have been at the core of the Pulitzer Center's work since its founding in 2006. The Center has supported breakthrough journalism that led to real-world impact: engaging and mobilizing communities, prompting demands for change, influencing decisions to halt environmentally destructive practices, and many more.
Since 2022, the Pulitzer Center has actively participated in the UN Conference of the Parties (COP) to join the climate community in addressing the socio-environmental challenges and opportunities of the present. As an important stage for climate and governance conversations that are at the heart of their work, COP is a key place to address relevant issues brought to life in their programs and stimulate collaboration. For this reason, Pulitzer Center is launching an initiative aimed at supporting civil society projects that can feed into the conversations they hope to have at COP 30 in Brazil.
TOPICS THAT WILL BE SUPPORTED BY THIS CIVIL SOCIETY MICRO-GRANT
The civil society organization microgrant builds on the Pulitzer Center’s impactful journalism projects, which focus on the following:
- Climate and Labor: Exploring the intersection of climate change and labor, including the challenges faced by vulnerable communities and the business sector's response to navigating climate-related impacts on workers’ rights.
- Rainforest: Highlighting critical issues and solutions in tropical forests, such as deforestation, biodiversity loss, the rainforest, and energy transition nexus, and the effects on Indigenous and local communities.
- Ocean: Addressing pressing topics like overfishing, marine pollution, climate change impacts on ocean ecosystems, and the livelihoods of coastal communities.
- Transparency and Governance: Uncovering governance challenges, good practices in natural resource management, and the ecological and societal impacts of policy decisions.
TYPE OF ACTIVITIES THEY SUPPORT
Examples of activities may include, but are not limited to:
- Multi stakeholder dialogue: Facilitating transparent and meaningful dialogues that bring together affected communities, journalists, decision-makers, and academia to advance climate and environmental action.
- Public forum: Organizing a national forum to foster public debate on key environmental issues, with Pulitzer Center-supported reporting as one of the knowledge or data sources to provoke discussions and inspire solutions.
- Community engagement: Knowledge-sharing activities between journalists and communities to amplify underreported issues and underrepresented voices.
- Creative campaign: Supporting creative campaigns to raise awareness on climate and environmental issues by amplifying journalism reporting and the diverse voice of affected communities;
- Other innovative projects: Creative ideas such as art exhibitions or other innovative mediums and platforms are also accepted.
TYPE OF ACTIVITIES WHICH ARE BEYOND THE SCOPE OF THIS GRANT
- Projects which are not utilizing Pulitzer Center-supported reporting or does not involve Pulitzer Center-supported journalists;
- Direct advocacy or lobbying, such as participating in congress or parliamentary meetings;
- Campaigns that involve or indirectly endorse political candidates or parties.
TIMELINE — OPEN CALL
- Application process: January 15 – February 15, 2025
- Selection process: February 17 – March 3, 2025
- Grants/partnership announcement: March 10, 2025
- Briefing and grants administration: March 10-14, 2025
- Implementation duration: March – November 2025
- Project closure: December 7 - 31, 2025
- Project Reporting: January 2026
Benefits of Pulitzer Center Civil Society Micro-Grant
- Grants range from US$2,000 to US$4,000. They expect projects to be implemented and concluded within nine months of approval.
Pulitzer Center Civil Society Micro-Grant Requirements
- Organization type: This grant is open to grassroots organizations, civil society organizations and coalitions, youth movements, and other groups working at the intersection of climate, environment, journalism, civic rights, and active citizenship. The organizations should develop activities in Southeast Asia, Latin America, or in Africa.
- Capacity for collaboration: A track record of co-creating impactful projects with other organizations and operational capacity to manage micro-grant resources from an international organization.
- Alignment with key issues: Proven experience working on the identified topics (climate change, rainforest, ocean, transparency and governance).
SELECTION CRITERIA
- Journalism-inspired: All projects must utilize at least one reporting and involve one journalist supported by the Pulitzer Center as a central part of the project. The journalists can be involved at various levels, for project development and consultation, for example, and their participation will need to be confirmed once the project has been selected.
- Audience-centric: Describe the project's target audience and why this project is important for them;
- Impact-focused: Designed to achieve short-term outcomes that align with:
- Improving the awareness and critical thinking of communities on critical climate, environment, and its intersectional issues;
- Contributing to more informed and transparent dialogues and decisions, practices, and policies related to climate, environment, and its intersectional issues;
- Equipping communities with information to take action at the local or global level.
Application Date and Process
- Click on the link to the application website to apply.
The application must include the following (see the link below):
- A general description of the proposed project in no more than 400 words. This should include the objectives, problem statement and rationale, proposed activities, intended impact of the proposed project, and the Pulitzer Center-supported reporting and, where relevant, the journalist to be involved in this project;
- Description of the target audience and projection (number) of the total audience reached;
- Strategy (or methodology);
- Activity implementation timeline;
- A preliminary budget estimate, including a cost forecast;
- If the proposed activities include knowledge exchange activities with Indigenous peoples or traditional communities, a statement from a community member demonstrating their consent must be submitted. This can be in the form of a message or letter;
- If the activities include content production, a content production and distribution plan should be included;
- A copy of the curriculum vitae (only) of the lead applicant, including a letter of recommendation (from department heads or the directors of your organization / workplace).
Application Deadline
15 February, 2025
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