• Civil Society and Governance
  • Civil Society and Governance Overview
  • Institutional Capacity Building
  • Civic Education
  • Citizen Participation
  • Advocacy
  • Democratic Governance
  • Grants Solicitation and Management Capacity
  • Women's and Minority Rights
  • Disenfranchised Groups
• Education
  • Education Overview
  • Basic Education
  • Higher Education
  • Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
  • Education for Vulnerable Groups
• HIV/AIDS
  • HIV/AIDS Overview
  • HIV/AIDS Prevention
  • Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC)
  • Grants Solicitation and Management Capacity
  • Institutional Capacity Building
• International Exchanges
  • International Professional, Academic, and Cultural Exchanges Overview
  • Undergraduate and Graduate Academic Exchanges
  • Professional Exchanges
  • Youth Exchanges
• Capacity Development and Training
  • Capacity Development and Training Overview
  • Participant Training
  • Institutional Capacity Building
  • Undergraduate and Graduate Academic Exchanges
  • Grant Solicitation and Management Capacity
  • Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Civil Society and Governance

Grants Solicitation and Management Capacity

World Learning is a leading organization in making grants and using grants as a development tool. A hallmark of World Learning's approach to fostering development is the use of carefully structured systems of funding local activities through grants, which generally incorporate a match from the community.  Most of its NGO strengthening programs contain a grants component along with targeted technical assistance and training.  World Learning has worked both with individual NGOs and with networks and intermediary organizations in numerous sectors, from health and education to democracy and enterprise development. It has managed grants programs with a grant pools as large as $79 million; individual grants have ranged from as little as $500 to as much as $3.5 million.  Regardless of the level of funding provided, each grant was the result of World Learning's honed systems and procedures for recruiting applicants, reviewing proposals, assessing institutional capacity, and ensuring the effective use of donor funds.  Typically, the grants have included some level of technical assistance and training designed to help improve the management and service delivery capabilities of the recipients.

World Learning has strong experience in managing and dispersing grants under USAID and other donor funded programs. Along with this experience, World Learning has developed tools and mechanisms to evaluate and select grantee organizations to assure their sustainability and viability for participation in projects and beyond. One of these tools is the Participatory Institutional Analysis Instrument specifically calibrated to measure the sophistication and development-stage of the organizations.  World Learning's grants management approach includes hands-on training and intensive mentoring for grantees that outline compliance strategies, procurement of essential resources and services for institutional strengthening, and support for development of appropriate management information systems (MIS) to standardize data collection and analysis. This analysis and mentoring are essential elements in assuring grantees' sustainability throughout the project and beyond and in ensuring that donor goals are met under each award while simultaneously guaranteeing the growth and development of grantee organizations.

The Grants Solicitation and Management Program
The goal of the Grants Solicitation and Management Program (GSM) is to provide health grants management services to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Bureau of Global Health and USAID Missions around the world. GSM streamlines health grants process in health sectors including family planning, HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, and control of infectious diseases, as well as supporting community-based service delivery, training, and related activities. Partnering with World Learning lightens the burden on USAID by assuming full responsibility for grant solicitation, review, award, management, monitoring and close-out phases, or by partnering with USAID Missions on any aspect of the grant-making process. GSM also provides technical assistance to grantees.

Special Programs to Aid the Needs of Survivors (SPANS)
In August, 2008, World Learning was awarded a $43 million Cooperative Agreement from USAID to implement Special Programs to Aid the Needs of Survivors (SPANS) Grants Solicitation and Management (GSM) on behalf of USAID's Office of Democracy and Governance within the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance.

SPANS GSM is an umbrella grant making mechanism that will support service delivery, training and related activities aimed at assisting vulnerable populations. Through this five-year agreement, World Learning will support USAID's goal of improving the health and well being of specific vulnerable populations, including displaced children and orphans, war victims, and victims of torture.