OVERVIEW: The Seattle International Foundation (SIF) seeks to improve the lives of at-risk youth, women, and indigenous peoples. SIF also supports projects that address youth sexual and reproductive health project through its Central America & Mexico Youth Fund (CAMY Fund).
IP TAKE: SIF focuses its grantmaking regionally, in the greater Seattle area, but also awards grants to projects that emphasize an interest in Central America and global development. It’s not currently accessible, but on occasion it posts open calls for specific focus areas.
PROFILE: Bill and Paula Clapp, co-founders of the Seattle International Foundation, have a long history of global development work. In 1994, the couple co-founded Global Partnerships, a nonprofit impact organization that worked towards alleviating global poverty and empowering women in developing countries. The Clapps eventually parlayed their years of experience in global development work in 2008 to establish the Seattle International Foundation, which seeks to alleviate global poverty in developing countries around the world. SIF funds poverty alleviation projects with a strategic focus on Central America. Across its funding, SIF prioritizes efforts to support women’s rights, microfinance, research, policy, empowering youth, women, and indigenous peoples.
Grants for Global Development
SIF’s Global program closed in 2015 in order to focus more fully on the foundation’s work in Central America. SIF seeks to “alleviate poverty and promote equality in the region” by using leadership development, public policy, and research as vehicles. The program supports initiatives to increase “economic opportunities for women, enhance judicial independence, prevent violence against women and promote opportunities for young people.”
In allotting its global development grantmaking, the foundation’s Centroamérica Adelante is an “innovative leadership development program” aimed at promoting cross-sector collaboration between organizations, businesses, and governments to “make a positive impact on the lives of those affected by the causes of migration.” The initiative features a ten-month program that aims to promote personal leadership growth, skills development, and social capacity building.
Meanwhile, the Central America in Washington, D.C. initiative focuses on U.S. foreign policy by “providing strategic analysis, research and policy recommendations that further justice and the rule of law, equity, democracy, and prosperity in the region.” It aims to inform U.S. policy-makers on the realities and problems in Central America while strengthening the region’s voice in American foreign policy in order to promote the rule of law, control migration and displacement, and support civil society.
SIF also awards grants through its Central America & Mexico Youth Fund (CAMY), which is a five-year partnership with the Summit Foundation. Grantees must be based in Guatemala or Honduras in order to receive an award. This regional exclusivity does not apply to SIFs Central America program. The fund plans to invest up to $1 million in girls’ equality and adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Quintana Roo, Mexico. Only two or three CAMY Fund grants are awarded annually in amounts up to $35,000, and those awards are given to young leaders ages 18 to 35.
Grants for Journalism
The Seattle International Foundation’s Independent Journalism Fund works to support alternative media and independent journalists in Central America in order to “research and report on the realities of the region, give voice to the people, and promote democracy.” The fund aims to protect the safety of journalists, defend alternative media sources, and build capacity of independent journalism through financial support, technical training, and ethics education. It has supported over a dozen organizations and institutions with projects such as data collection, data analysis, fact checking, and broader media coverage. These grantees include Agencia Ocote, Latin American Center for Journalistic Research, Confidencial Nicaragua, El Intercambio, and Global Investigative Journalism Network.
Grants for Civic and Democracy
The Seattle International Foundation’s Anti-Impunity Fund aims to lead the fight against governmental and corporate impunity in Central America, by which it means “the failure to hold individuals, groups, or state actors accountable for misdeeds.” It aids civil society organizations and youth social movements by sharing expertise and providing strategic analysis. It has previously supported meetings and gatherings of prosecutors, civil leaders, and youth activists in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala in order to build coalitions and draft proposals for how to combat rampant impunity.
Important Grant Details:
Grants generally range from $25,000 to $250,000. While the fund is based in Seattle, it primarily funds work in Central America, especially in the countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Grantseekers may review the foundation’s Past Grants for more information on its grantmaking habits.
SIF is not currently accepting unsolicited grant applications or requests for funding.
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