Deadline: 29-Jul-22

Is your organization tackling issues related to industrial animal agriculture (a.k.a. factory farming) in low- and middle-income countries? Does your organization want to bring in more academic research and academic experts to bolster its work? If yes, then The Tiny Beam Fund’s Fueling Advocates Initiative (FAI) is open for applications.

Purpose

• Encourage and enable advocacy organizations and think tanks to use academic research to gain in-depth knowledge of issues they work on, fuel their campaigns, and bolster their efforts. 
• When reviewing applications for FAI Grants, Tiny Beam Fund gives priority to those that use findings, products, and expertise from the academic sector to:
  • Significantly improve specific projects and campaigns.
  • Evaluate the effectiveness of specific programs and strategies.
  • Build the capacity of advocacy and front-line organizations in low- and middle-income countries (e.g. upskill staff and volunteers, raise organizations' reputation as credible and evidence-based).
  • Focus on production, supply, value chains. (Applications that focus solely on consumption, consumer demand, vegetarian/vegan diet, alternative protein are rarely shortlisted.)

Pillars

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

• Industrial food animal production
  • Focus on a distinctive model and system of production and value chain that has characteristics such as operating on a large scale, with hired labor, high throughput, high stocking density, confined housing, controlled feed and diet, vertical integration, products geared toward non-local trade and commercial purposes.
  • It is interested in both terrestrial and aquatic animals, and in all the serious downside and negative impacts of this system of production, from public health to animal welfare.
  • Tiny Beam Fund is not interested in the consumption of animal-source foods and plant-based foods per se; its interest in consumption aspects is limited to their relevance to and impact on production.
• Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)
  • Focus on low- and middle-income countries (according to the latest World Bank classification).
  • Nevertheless, Tiny Beam Fund recognizes that the world’s top corporations engaging in industrial food animal production, processing, and marketing have global reach no matter where their headquarters are located.
• Academic research: Focus on supporting academic researchers, experts, and institutions because of the significant and unique role they can play in:
  • Generating high-quality, contextual, independent information and analyses.
  • 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 the academic field and community – how it operates, what it likes and dislikes, its strengths and weaknesses.

Funding Information

• Each applicant can request a grant amount from $2,000 (minimum) to $20,000 (maximum).
• The award period is nine months. Grantees can choose their own start dates, preferably not more than three months after they have been informed of their grant offers.

What FAI Grants can be used for?

Examples of things FAI grants can be used for:

• To help a LMIC group to engage with and obtain assistance from academic experts in the local area.
• To translate important non-English academic papers into English.
• To defray the cost of adding an academic specialist to the team.
• To pay a staff member to spend one day a week on academic-related work that feeds directly into a specific current project (e.g. prepare summaries of academic papers; consult academics regularly).
• For a team of independent “third party” academic experts to review 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 offered to organizations (not individuals). Organizations eligible to apply for and receive FAI grants need not be located in the U.S., but they must be registered charities /groups in their own countries and equivalent to U.S. 501(c)(3) organizations.
• FAI Grants are offered to non-profit organizations (in and outside the U.S.) tackling issues related to industrial food animal production (a.k.a. “factory farming”) in low- and middle-income countries.

For more information, visit Tiny Beam Fund.

For more information, visit https://tinybeamfund.org/Grants-Program