Grants for Family Planning and Contraception Projects in the Asia Pacific

Each year, we will typically hand out 3-5 grants to different projects. Each grant is typically between $10,000 to a maximum of $40,000. Our policy is to allocate only one grant each year to any given NGO.

Non-Government Organisations that can apply must be DFAT-accredited.It is an Australian Government requirement that WPF donate only to Deductible Gift Recipients registered in Australia.

We have a preference to support organisations that provide family planning and contraceptive services as a clear and important part of their mandate and with family planning outcomes reflected in their key performance indicators.

We also have a preference to fund projects that include or link into some direct provision of contraceptive services.

Our priority is to fund organisations where the target audiences (see below) reside in our key identified focus regions (see below).

These include, but are not limited to

• Women and girls who want to plan their pregnancies or discontinue expansion of their families but have limited or no access to modern contraceptives (e.g. rural communities; language and cultural barriers).

• Those most at risk of unwanted pregnancies and for whom unwanted pregnancies can cause the most problems (e.g. young girls, those in disaster prone areas).

• Women and girls who are not using any form of contraception because of perceived barriers (e.g. side-effects experienced with a particular type of contraception that deter them from using any type; myths and misunderstandings about contraceptives, cultural factors that may in some cases constitute an abuse of human rights).

• Generally, we only allocate one grant per NGO for a maximum of one year, and do not commit to ongoing grants in the years following.

• However we will consider proposals that are for a continuation of funding in the light of results achieved in the previous year(s), and opportunities to scale up or consolidate.

• In some circumstances we have been funding the same organisation for several years to conduct ongoing work that has become more sustainable over time and has been expanded one way of another.

You are free to approach the application however you’d like, either addressing all key points in the Grant Application Checklist (below) directly or submitting a broader business report which ensures that all criteria are addressed. You are also free to format the application in whichever format / medium you wish (i.e. PPT, Word etc.).

During the grant period, we require two reports and a testimonial:

• An interim report for the first half of the year, due by the end of February the following year, which helps us assess any future funding proposals.

• A final report for the full year, from July to June, due by August the following year.

• One year on, we also request a testimonial and photos for promotional purposes.

• WPF wishes to fund projects that are themselves sustainable or lay the foundation for further advances. When preparing proposals we ask that the rationale and some evidence be given concerning the sustainability prospects of the project and its outcomes.

• For example, projects that lead to enhanced awareness and understanding of types of contraceptives are important as long as there is potential for awareness and understanding to convert to action. So in this case, for example it would be important to be able to demonstrate that supply of contraceptives will be able to address increased demand.

• Similarly, capacity building of health care providers on the ground is a means of improving sustainability. When capacity has been developed there should be opportunity to apply, maintain and refresh capacity.

We have a dedicated expert team to review applications; comprising of a grant evaluation specialist and two board members.

As a relatively small organisation we are generally not in a position to fund large scale long-term advocacy projects of the type that might be required to change legislation or government policy in a developing country. While all applications will always be considered, we prefer to fund projects in countries where a considerable degree of support for modern family planning is evident so that projects are more likely to be effective and their results sustainable.

• Absolutely. We will also consider projects that have the potential to lead to increased knowledge of and demand for modern contraceptives and more effective delivery and take-up of contraceptive services (e.g. education of young people about contraception; training for insertion of long-acting reversible contraceptives).

• However, we require that you make a strong case for how your projects and its outcomes will contribute to greater acceptability of modern contraceptives and family planning, improved demand for, access to, and take-up of contraceptives.

Outputs refer to the tangible items or services produced by the project (e.g. $5000 spent on contraception, 20 reproductive education sessions held).

Outcomes describe the long-term impact of these outputs on addressing the underlying problem (e.g. a 5% reduction in unintended pregnancies in a region).

• As an organisation that values evidence-based action and decision making, WPF require problems and target outcomes to be measured and reported in terms of metrics.

• WPF needs to validate that family planning outcomes are core to your organisation’s key performance indicators. We expect that these would be measures that you would already be collecting for your own purposes and require little extra work to generate new information.

Here at WPF, we believe that every woman should choose the type of contraceptive that she considers appropriate to her circumstances. That said however, we do have a preference for projects that are endeavouring to expand access to and take-up of long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs). LARCs have been found to be more effective with respect to reducing unwanted pregnancies, especially when continuing access to contraceptives cannot be assured [1].

[1] Bahamondes, L., Villarroel, C., Gúzman, N., Oizerovich, S., Velázquez-Ramírez, N., & Monteiro, I. (2018). The use of long-acting reversible contraceptives in Latin America and the Caribbean: current landscape and recommendations. Human Reproduction Open, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1093/hropen/hox030.