On 7th of March, the USAID Civil Society Engagement Program announced the Act Now / Rapid Response Grants program to support community organizing and activism by Georgian civil society organizations (CSOs), civic movements, and citizen groups in response to the Ukraine war and its implications for Georgia. This grant program was designed to rapidly deploy flexible resources to organizations and civic activists to take civic action and:
- Engage in community organizing to support Ukrainians in Georgia by identifying unmet needs, tailoring the response to the needs, coordinating the ongoing efforts, and/or consolidating the information about the available support in one place to make it more accessible.
- Engage in community organizing to raise funds for relief services in Ukraine by publicizing the existing instruments and opportunities, creating new opportunities, and/or providing other types of essential support.
- Facilitate intra-sectoral and inter-sectoral cooperation to help strengthen/scale up the ongoing support and community mobilization efforts and/or develop new ones.
Act Now / Rapid Response Grants could also be used to address other issues requiring a timely and diligent response. This could include:
- Public awareness and advocacy initiatives to expose and limit the current malign influence activities by far-right and/or Russia-funded groups in Georgia in the midst of the war in Ukraine.
- Policy analysis and public awareness initiatives to bring deeper insight into the most widely debated issues at the moment e.g., joining of sanctions, the closing of the airspace, threats for Georgia, etc.
- Policy analysis and public advocacy initiatives to identify and address the most urgent needs and priorities in Georgia created by the Ukrainian war.
- Public awareness and advocacy initiatives to support communication on the Ukraine war, bilateral and multilateral support efforts, and urgent policy responses in Georgia and beyond.
- Civic initiatives addressing other significant aspects of the Ukrainian war and its immediate implications for Georgia.
Amount of Act Now Grant: Min. $500 – Max. $10,000
Duration of Projects: Min. 2 Weeks – Max. 2 months
The program was closed on April 1, 2022.
