The purpose of the Civil Society Fund (CSF) is to support capacity strengthening of civil society actors.
By supporting such actors, the CSF aims to increase citizen participation in governance and development processes. This helps give voice to marginalised groups and holds governments accountable, and address pressing social issues like poverty, inequality, discrimination, and lack of access to services. The CSF contributes to a robust and pluralistic civil society by supporting a wide range of formal and informal organisations, movements, and initiatives. This diversity is crucial for a well-functioning democracy.
Civil society actors can pilot innovative approaches, reach marginalised groups, and advocate for policy reforms, thereby allowing citizens to actively participate in social, economic and political life, contributing to more inclusive and just societies.
The CSF supports partnerships between civil society actors in the Global South and Denmark. Global partnerships built on mutual trust and respect are valuable as they bring together actors with different capacities and perspectives to reach common goals.
The Global South partners are closer to the problems than the Danish partners, and they are best situated to develop solutions. Therefore, the development and implementation of interventions funded by the CSF must be led by the Global South partners, who in turn who must be anchored in and accountable towards the communities wherein they work.
The Danish partners typically contribute with experience, perspectives, technical inputs, and network, as well as access to decision makers and funds from institutional donors and private foundations in Denmark and Europe. Moreover, the Danish partners might be strong allies with potential to advocate for marginalised people in the Global South by addressing issues that requires political or practical action in Denmark, as well as cross-border solidarity work.
The partnerships must be meaningful and relevant to all partners, and the work done must be valuable for the communities benefitting hereof. This is ensured by giving local communities a voice to express needs and power in deciding the solutions addressing those needs.
Sustainability of the work supported by the CSF is enhanced when local communities are the principal change agents in interventions and when the CSF is not the only contribution of resources. Communities and partners can contribute to the work themselves e.g. by hosting meetings in the community hall free of charge or supplementing agricultural inputs to a farming project with seeds gathered from local farmers. These community contributions are resources contributed by communities or local partners. All interventions supported by the CSF are expected to include community contributions. However, it is only a requirement for Medium and Large Programme grants to contribute with financial resources.
The CSF supports a variety of work by organisations and movements; from short-term projects with a tight focus on a specific task, to longer development processes that all require long-term strategies and flexibility to react to opportunities as they present themselves. The CSF recognises different approaches and strategies can be applied to achieve sustainable changes, which varies depending on context, priorities, experiences and position.
Funding Modalities
Project support
Small project - up to DKK 150.000
Large Project - up to DKK 700.000
Programme support
Small Programme - up to DKK 4 mio. in total
Medium Programme - up to DKK 15 mio. in total
Large Program - up to DKK 27 mio. in total
Funding Diversification
Co-funding - up to DKK 1 mio. pr. grant.
Support for application process - up to DKK 50.000 pr. grant
Capacity Aalysis
CISU covers all costs for the consultant and activities for an organisation awarded a Capacity Analysis grant.
The Neighbourhood Fund
Development Intervention - up to DKK 4,5 mio.
Resilience and Democratic Development Ukraine -up to DKK 4,5 mio
Support for Application Process - up to DKK 50.000
Co-funding - up to DKK 1 mio.
To ensure sufficient capacity among new applicants, the following grant ceilings apply to the CSF:
- A first-time applicant with no prior grants from CISU or a donor with similar reporting requirements to those of CISU and/or the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs can apply for projects up to DKK 500,000.
- To apply for projects and programmes of more than DKK 500,000, the applicant must have completed at least one intervention of more than DKK 200,000 funded by CISU or a donor with similar reporting requirements to those of CISU and/or the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
This requirement is also fulfilled when the applicant organisation as part of a consortium has been responsible for at least DKK 200,000 of the total budget of a grant with similar reporting requirements as CISU’s and/or the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs’. It is the applicant organisation that must provide documentation to CISU that it has had budget responsibility of at least DKK 200,000 which includes experience with project implementation, as well as experience with narrative, financial reporting and auditing.
Organisational grant ceiling
Each organisation can obtain grants across the Project Support and Programme Support modalities for a maximum total amount of DKK 5 million per year. Organisations awarded a Large Programme can exceed the organisational grant ceiling. Grants for Funding Diversification and Capacity Analysis are not included in the organisational grant ceiling.
All applications are assessed based on a holistic evaluation of the quality and purpose of the intervention. The assessment is based partly on the overall objectives of the Civil Society Fund and partly on the specific objectives and assessment criteria related to each type of support.
The timeframe for the assessment of applications depends on the modality.