Once you have determined that your organization is eligible, you must first send a letter of inquiry (LOI). The subject line of your LOI email must contain the name of the country in
which your project is located. If we determine that your project is a
good fit with ABSF priorities, we will contact you within 1 month via
email and/or phone with further questions and next steps.
Proposal
Proposals are by invitation only.
Current Partners: If you have previously received a
grant from the Arthur B. Schultz Foundation, please contact your
previous representative to discuss a new commitment.
Potential Partners: If you have been invited to submit a proposal, please review our proposal guidelines page. For our 2017 grant cycle, invited grant proposals ONLY are due before Dec 1.
Eligible organizations:
- Have an operating budget less than 1.5M.
- Are located in the geographic regions listed below.
- Share our Mobility Solutions and/or Women’s Empowerment vision.
Mobility Solutions
The Challenge:
- The two-way link between poverty and disability creates a vicious circle. Poor people are more at risk of acquiring a disability because of lack of access to good nutrition, health care, sanitation, as well as safe living and working conditions. Once this occurs, people face barriers to the education, employment, and public services that can help them escape poverty (UNDP)
- 90 to 98% of children with disabilities in developing countries do not attend school (UNESCO)
- Discriminatory practices continue to deny persons with disabilities, as well as workers who become disabled, access to work. Two-thirds of the unemployed respondents with disabilities said they would like to work but could not find jobs (OECD)
Our Vision:
- A world with equal access to mobility and related services for all.
The WHO estimates that over 100 million people worldwide need a
wheelchair. In most developing countries, few people have access,
wheelchairs are often inappropriate for the conditions, production
facilities are lacking and follow-up services are often non existent.
The Arthur B. Schultz Foundation seeks to address these overwhelming
inequalities by supporting efforts to increase access to appropriate
wheelchair and mobility solutions in the developing world.
Priority is given to organizations that:
- Work with established in-country, technologically appropriate wheelchair manufacturers;
- Take a preventive approach by addressing early childhood issues and interventions;
- Employ a substantial percentage of disabled workers;
- Evaluate their work and adapt to changing situations.
Women’s Empowerment
The Challenge:
- Even though the size of the global illiterate population is shrinking, the female proportion has remained virtually steady at 63% to 64%. (UNESCO)
- The underlying pattern in most countries is that the more years of schooling a woman has, the fewer children she is likely to have. Educated women are more likely to use modern methods of contraception, and they tend to marry later. Educated parents of both sexes also generally desire smaller families than those with less education, and educated women tend to act on that reproductive preference for fewer children. (UNFPA)
- Gender inequalities in time use are still large and persistent in all countries. When paid and unpaid work are combined, women in developing countries work more than men, with less time for education, leisure, political participation and self-care (UNWomen)
- When more women work, economies grow. An increase in female labor force participation—or a reduction in the gap between women’s and men’s labor force participation—results in faster economic growth (OECD)
- Evidence from a range of countries shows that increasing the share of household income controlled by women, either through their own earnings or cash transfers, changes spending in ways that benefit children (The World Bank)
- Women’s economic equality is good for business. Companies greatly benefit from increasing leadership opportunities for women, which is shown to increase organizational effectiveness. It is estimated that companies with three or more women in senior management functions score higher in all dimensions of organizational effectiveness (McKinsey & Company)
Our Vision:
- A world with opportunities for all women to receive an education, assume leadership roles and achieve economic independence.
We believe that women are powerful agents of change and giving them
opportunities to do their work will advance their community and
ultimately their nation. In order to further this belief, we focus on
two main areas: education and entrepreneurship.
Grant Priorities:
Education:
Educate a girl and you educate the family, the village and the nation
itself. While we recognize the crucial need for education at all
levels, the Arthur B. Schultz Foundation focuses primarily on young
women at the high school level and above. Projects that incorporate a robust leadership and mentoring component will be prioritized.
Entrepreneurship:
We envision a world in which women are economically secure and
independent. We support entrepreneurship and vocational skills training
for women. We also support seed funding for business creation and
development.
We are primarily interested in organizations that:
- Work in developing countries (see geographic regions below);
- Emphasize leadership and mentoring in their projects;
- Support women entrepreneurs;
- Offer high-quality and innovative educational opportunities from high school through university level;
- Are well-established in the communities in which they work and employ local staff;
- Evaluate their work and adapt to changing situations;
- Are located in rural areas and urban slums;
- Are relatively small (less than 1.5M in Operating Funds).
Moreinfo: http://absfoundation.org
