Funding Friday
Happy Funding Friday (on Saturday)!
This week’s grant roundup brings a mix of global opportunities—from wildlife tracking and water innovation to intercultural seed funding, academic events, and grassroots tech. Whether you're piloting bold ideas or scaling local impact, there's something here to fuel your next move.
Have a great weekending,
Jesse Orndorff
Global
💧 World Water Challenge 2025
📝 The World Water Challenge 2025, hosted by the Ministry of Environment of Korea and organized by the Korea Water Forum, seeks innovative, implementable water solutions aligned with UN SDGs. Open to individuals and organizations worldwide. Submissions require a solution concept and a graphical abstract.
🤔 Thought‑Provoking Questions and Insights
Smart vs Appropriate Technology: Which type of solutions create the greatest value in low-resource settings—high-tech or community-adapted?
Path to Implementation: How can participants move from idea to pilot deployment—what support is needed beyond the award?
Sustainable Impact: What mechanisms can ensure winning solutions integrate with local infrastructure and gain institutional backing?
🐾 Holohil Grant Program
📝 The Holohil Grant Program provides up to CAD 2,500 worth of wildlife-tracking transmitters each quarter to support global research and conservation projects. Open to professionals and non-professionals alike, the program prioritizes projects that rely heavily on Holohil equipment, contribute to scientific understanding, and promote public education—especially those involving underrepresented species.
🤔 Thought‑Provoking Questions and Insights
Technology as Conservation Tool: How can access to transmitters transform data collection for lesser-known or understudied species?
Public Outreach: What creative outreach methods could projects use to share telemetry data and involve youth?
Measuring Impact: Beyond tracking, how can recipients maximize the scientific and conservation outcomes of using Holohil devices?
🎤 Conference Support Grant
📝 The Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) offers the Event Support Grant Program to help graduate students and faculty host rigorous academic workshops and conferences centered on liberalism, democracy, intellectual freedom, equality, and ethics. Both in-person and online events qualify, with priority given to diverse representation and scholarly discourse
🤔 Thought‑Provoking Questions and Insights
Academic Freedom & Diversity: How can workshops ensure a wide range of ideological perspectives while maintaining scholarly rigor?
Impact Through Scholarship: What formats (e.g., debate panels, peer-reviewed papers, interactive sessions) best foster critical ideas within the liberal traditions?
Scalable Support Model: Could small-scale honoraria empower underrepresented scholars and enhance inclusion at prestigious events?
🔗 Conference Support Grant – IHS Event Support Program
🌱 Lisle International Global Seed Grants Program 2025
📝 Lisle International’s Global Seed Grants is looking for new, small-scale intercultural projects worldwide that foster shared learning, understanding, and collaboration across boundaries of ethnicity, culture, religion, race, caste, or gender. Innovative, growth‑oriented initiatives led by small organizations are encouraged to apply.
🤔 Thought-Provoking Questions and Insights
Intercultural Bridges: How can seed funding best empower grassroots initiatives that foster understanding across diverse communities?
Scaling Impact: What strategies can help small projects with limited funding grow sustainably and effectively?
Social Justice: How can early-stage projects incorporate equity and inclusion in their foundational design?
🔗 Lisle International Global Seed Grants Program 2025
👩🏾🎓 2026 Young Trilateral Leaders Summit
📝 The U.S. Embassy in Seoul together with the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, has released a Notice of Funding Opportunity for the 2026 Young Trilateral Leaders Summit. This cooperative agreement, provides up to USD 200,000 to a single U.S.-based nonprofit or higher-education institution to organize a youth summit in the United States in summer 2026. The event will bring together emerging youth leaders from the U.S., Republic of Korea, and Japan. Applicants are required to facilitate a minimum four-week pre-summit virtual engagement, a three-day in-person summit with expert-led sessions on trilateral security and economic cooperation, and structured follow-on mentorship and collaboration activities
🤔 Thought‑Provoking Questions and Insights
Trilateral Leadership: How can youth from three countries collaborate to shape Indo-Pacific security and prosperity?
Program Structure: How can a summit balance policy depth (e.g., supply chains, emerging tech) with interactive leadership experiences?
Alumni Engagement: What follow-on project models can sustain the network and reinforce trilateral ties post‑summit?
🔗 2026 Young Trilateral Leaders Summit – U.S. Embassies in Seoul & Tokyo
Asia-Pacific
🔧 Shape the Next‑Gen of Indigenous Technologies Initiative- India
📝 The TIH Foundation for IoT & IoE has released an RFA under its Technology Development Program, titled Shape the Next‑Gen of Indigenous Technologies Initiative (India). This call invites Indian academicians, researchers, and startups to propose breakthrough innovations in cyber-physical systems, IoT, and IoE—particularly focusing on indigenous sensor hardware for sectors like healthcare, agriculture, and supply chains.
🤔 Thought‑Provoking Questions and Insights
Homegrown Innovation: How can indigenous sensor development reduce dependency on imported hardware in medtech, precision agri, and supply chain monitoring?
Market Readiness: Which scalable, application-oriented sensors can reach TRL 4+ and jump to commercial deployment within 18 months?
Academic–Industry Synergy: What collaboration models best support the transition of university-led prototypes into startup-driven products?
🔗Shape the Next‑Gen of Indigenous Technologies Initiative – TIH Foundation, India
💰 HKEX Charity Partnership Programme
📝 The HKEX Foundation launched its Charity Partnership Programme to empower local non-profit initiatives in Hong Kong that drive structural change. Focus areas include: Financial Literacy, Social Empowerment, Talent Development, and Environmental Sustainability.
🤔 Thought‑Provoking Questions and Insights
Long-Term Impact: Given the programme supports multi-year projects (up to 36 months), how can funding bodies ensure long-term outcomes beyond the grant?
Local and Scalable: How can beneficiaries balance community-level depth with replicability and potential scale?
Strategic Focus: Should applications more effectively integrate multiple focus areas—for example, combining Talent Development with Environmental Sustainability?
🔗 HKEX Charity Partnership Programme
Africa
📚 Empowering Digital Teaching- Tanzania
📝 This grant opportunity targets enhancing digital competence among teachers in Tanzania by equipping classrooms with modern tools and training educators to integrate technology into everyday teaching. The program supports procurement of laptops, tablets, projectors, educational software, and interactive whiteboards, followed by workshops, peer-mentoring, continuous technical support, and monitoring to ensure effective usage in classrooms.
🤔 Thought‑Provoking Questions and Insights
Tech Infrastructure in Classrooms: How effective is blending hardware (like tablets, projectors) with continuous support and mentorship for sustainable tech use in rural Tanzanian schools?
Professional Growth: How can teacher-training programs best integrate peer-to-peer learning and webinars to maintain digital skill development beyond initial workshops?
Impact Monitoring: What indicators (student engagement, digital literacy, improved outcomes) best show the success of digital education initiatives, and how can data from classroom observations drive program evolution?
🔗 Empowering Digital Teaching – Funds for NGOs
🇧🇮 Agroecological Innovations Scaling- Burundi
📝 Enabel, Belgium’s development agency, has launched a Call for Proposals aimed at identifying, testing, and preparing agroecological innovations for large-scale adoption across Burundi. This initiative focuses on sustainable practices—like cropping systems, soil and biodiversity management—combined with economic performance assessments and institutional support for farmers.
🤔 Thought‑Provoking Questions and Insights
Farmer-Led Innovation: How can agro ecological solutions be co-designed with farmers to suit diverse local contexts?
Evidence of Impact: Which metrics (e.g., yield, soil health, resilience to climate shocks) best measure readiness for scaling?
Enabling Systems: What financial, technical, and organizational support is needed for widespread adoption?
🔗 Agroecological Innovations Scaling
🌍 Moses Mapesa Research Grant
📝 The Moses Mapesa Research Grant supports African master’s and doctoral students conducting research on natural and cultural heritage at African World Heritage Sites or Tentative List properties. The grant funds fieldwork and advance scholarship related to heritage conservation, indigenous knowledge, climate change, and more.
🤔 Thought-Provoking Questions and Insights
Heritage & Climate: How can research integrate climate resilience into heritage conservation strategies across Africa?
Indigenous Knowledge: What role does traditional custodianship play in safeguarding heritage sites?
Youth Engagement: How can young scholars amplify awareness and education on cultural heritage?