Feed the Non-Profit Advocates Initiative

Non-profit organisations. Is your organisation tackling the problems associated with industrial animal agriculture (aka factory farming) in low- and middle-income countries? Does your organisation want to involve more university researchers and academic experts to strengthen its work? If so, the Tiny Beam Fund's Fueling Advocates Initiative (FAI) is open for applications.

Goal

• Encourage and enable rights organisations and think tanks to use academic research to gain in-depth knowledge of the issues they are working on, to inform their campaigns and to strengthen their efforts.
• When considering applications for fai grants, Tiny Beam Fund gives priority to those that use the results, products and expertise of the university sector to:
  • Significantly improve specific projects and campaigns.
  • Evaluating the effectiveness of specific programmes and strategies.
  • Build the capacity of advocacy and frontline organisations in low- and middle-income countries (e.g. improve the skills of staff and volunteers, enhance the reputation of organisations as credible and evidence-based).
  • Focus on production, supply, value chains (applications that focus solely on consumption, consumer demand, vegetarian/vegan diet, alternative proteins are rarely shortlisted).

Pillars

There are three pillars and fundamental objectives deeply rooted in Tiny Beam Fund's mission and approach. They govern everything it does and define who it is:

• Industrial production of food animals
  • Focus on a distinctive production and value chain model and system that has characteristics such as large-scale operation, with hired labour, high throughput, high storage density, confined housing, controlled food and diet, vertical integration, products oriented towards non-local trade and commercial purposes.
  • It covers both terrestrial and aquatic animals, as well as all the serious drawbacks and negative impacts of this production system, from public health to animal welfare.
  • Tiny Beam Fund is not interested in the consumption of animal and plant foods per se; its interest in consumption issues is limited to their relevance and impact on production.
• Low and middle income countries (LMIC)
  • Focus on low- and middle-income countries (according to the latest World Bank classification).
  • Nevertheless, Tiny Beam Fund recognises that the world's largest companies engaged in the production, processing and marketing of industrial food animals have a global reach, regardless of where their headquarters are located.
• University research Focus on supporting academic researchers, experts and institutions because of the important and unique role they can play in :
  • Generate high-quality, contextual and independent information and analysis.
  • Serving as a voice that is generally trusted and respected by governments, civil society, and certain segments of industries.

Three further reasons:

• Academic research is underutilized by front-line and advocacy organizations.
• Most funders of this issue have little interest in supporting academic research.
• Tiny Beam Fund's familiarity and experience with academia and the community - how it works, its likes and dislikes, its strengths and weaknesses.

Information on funding

• Each applicant can apply for a grant of between 2,000 $ (minimum) and 20,000 $ (maximum).
• The award period is nine months. Beneficiaries may choose their own start dates, preferably no later than three months after being informed of their grant offers.

What can ISP subsidies be used for?

Examples of what ISP subsidies can be used for:

• Helping a DE PRFI group to get involved and obtain help from academic experts in the region.
• Translating major non-English academic articles into English.
• Defray the cost of adding an academic specialist to the team.
• Pay a member of staff to devote one day a week to academic work that feeds directly into a specific ongoing project (e.g. preparing abstracts for academic articles; regularly consulting academics).
• For a team of independent "third party" academic experts to examine and evaluate the effectiveness of a campaign.

Eligibility criteria

• Government-registered groups in any country comparable to U.S. 501 (c) (3) organizations are eligible to apply.
• FAI grants are available to organisations (not individuals). Organizations eligible to apply for and receive FAI grants do not need to be located in the United States, but they must be charities/groups registered in their own country and equivalent to U.S. 501(c)(3) organizations.
• FAI grants are offered to non-profit organisations (in the US and abroad) that address issues related to the industrial production of food animals (aka "factory farming") in low- and middle-income countries.

For more information, please visit Tiny Beam Fund.