Democracy and rights: building a future with justice and equality

FOR ALL TO SEE: Artwork for the 2025 general call for proposals, with the name of the call “Democracy and rights: building the future with justice and equality” displayed in its center. It includes several newspaper clippings with images of demonstrations in defense of rights. On the left side of the artwork, there is a newspaper clipping paying tribute to the founder of the Brazil Human Rights Fund, Margarida Genevois, featuring her photo.

SEE THE LIST OF SELECTED APPLICANTS

APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED. 

The Brazil Human Rights Fund invites groups, collectives, and civil society organizations working to tackle violations and protect human rights in Brazil to present proposals for funding their work under the General Call for Proposals 2025 “Democracy and rights: building the future with justice and equality”.

The Brazil Fund believes that the work carried out by these groups must be strengthened so that they can continue to fight against setbacks, for the expansion upon rights, and for the reconstruction of spaces of participation and advocacy in the democratic arena. This requires empowering organizations, groups, and collectives that fight for equality, equity, and human rights, as well as engaging in confronting power asymmetries and violence, and in paving the way for new democratic experiences.

This year, the call for proposals pays tribute to activist Margarida Genevois, a leading figure in defense of human rights in Brazil. For two decades, Margarida challenged the violations of the military dictatorship, serving as president of the Justice and Peace Committee of the Archdiocese of São Paulo and member of the Human Rights Committee of the University of São Paulo (USP). Throughout her career of resistance, she assisted political prisoners and reported cases of enforced disappearance and torture to international organizations. After Brazil’s redemocratization, she continued engaging with social movements, being one of the founders of Brazil Fund. She is still active in this field to this day. The artwork illustrating this call for proposals is a tribute to her tireless struggle for human rights.

In this call, eligible projects include those aimed at strengthening the institutional capacity of organizations engaged in addressing violations, advocating for rights and promoting the human rights in their multiple facets. By institutional capacity strengthening, we consider the needs of applicants to support their organizational structure and improve institutional development processes, such as: governance and planning; finance; monitoring and evaluation. Thus, institutional support can facilitate actions such as: institutional planning, staff professional development, development of internal monitoring and evaluation systems, specific plannings (fundraising, communication, advocacy, etc.) or comprehensive safety planning.

We will also consider projects that focus on—either solely or jointly with institutional strengthening efforts—actions in defense of rights, advocacy, social mobilization initiatives, community outreach, organizational capacity building, headquarters maintenance costs, procurement, among other actions.

The grant can be flexibly allocated, and selected organizations are free to decide on the best allocation of the funds, taking into account the objectives of the call for proposals.

Brazil Fund values and gives priority to proposals from organizations, groups, and collectives that promote racial and gender equity in its composition. Projects must address racial, ethnic, and gender dimensions.
Please note: we suggest that you carefully read the full call for proposals, with the guidelines contained herein and the “Frequently Asked Questions” section (at the end of the text). If you still have any questions, please write to [email protected].

SUBMISSION KEY DATES
Proposals may be submitted from December 13, 2024 to March 10, 2025, by 6 p.m. (GMT-3).

NUMBER OF GRANTS AND FUNDING AMOUNT
Twenty organizations, groups, and collectives will receive grants of up to fifty thousand Brazilian reais (BRL 50,000.00) each, totaling up to one million Brazilian reais (BRL 1,000,000.00) in grants under this Call for Proposals. The projects shall be carried out over a period of no more than 12 months.

BACKGROUND
Brazil faces deep challenges when it comes to enforcing human rights. Such challenges have been compounded by recent setbacks, attacks on democracy, and increased violence against human rights defenders. These setbacks mirror historical structures of inequality that continue to marginalize vulnerable groups, such as Indigenous peoples, Quilombolas, traditional communities, and the LGBTQIA+ population. These segments of the population hold their ground amid models of territorial and human exploitation, facing processes of dehumanization, criminalization, violence, and delegitimization. This scenario highlights the urgency of empowering civil society, which plays a crucial role in the defense of democracy and human rights.

Between 2012 and 2023, at least 401 defenders were murdered in Brazil, according to data from Global Witness. Combined with the cases recorded in Colombia, Honduras, and Mexico, these figures average 70% of the deaths of defenders in Latin America. The region is considered the most dangerous in the world for land and environmental defenders, accounting for 85% of the murders reported in 2023. Only in 2023, 25 murders of human rights defenders were recorded in Brazil, second only to Colombia. Many of these violations were committed by both private actors and state agents, illustrating the hostile environment faced by those who fight for justice. This scenario was exacerbated by direct attacks on democratic institutions, which highlighted the current fragility of Brazilian democracy.

Besides revealing the rising political polarization and the advance of anti-rights agendas, these attacks reinforce the importance of supporting civil society in the fight to protect human rights and rebuild an inclusive democracy.

Organizations and collectives require support to counter the wave of violence, promote social transformation, and develop public policies that fairly represent historically marginalized groups. In addition, it is essential to foster actions that raise awareness among the population about the importance of democracy and human rights, thereby cultivating a democratic and pluralistic culture.

The objective of this Call for Proposals is to strengthen the autonomy and participation of civil society in the promotion of rights and to facilitate the ongoing struggle for social, gender, racial, and climate justice. Strengthening social initiatives and grassroot participation is fundamental to consolidate a more democratic, fair, and pluralistic Brazilian society, where the defense of human rights is a priority.

CONDITIONS TO APPLY

• The applicant must be a group/collective/organization working in defense of rights.
• Each organization, group or collective may submit only one project. Should a same organization, group or collective send more than one project, ONLY the last one registered will be considered.
• Projects from organizations, groups and collectives with little to no access to other sources of funding will have priority.
• We will accept proposals submitted by non-profit organizations, groups, and collectives, even if they are not yet officially registered and/or do not bear a CNPJ (Brazilian Corporate Taxpayer ID).
• WE WILL NOT ACCEPT projects submitted by individuals, governmental organizations, universities, international organizations, political parties, small or medium sized enterprises, microenterprises, and individual microentrepreneurs.
• It is permitted to submit concurrent proposals for other open calls from Brazil Fund.  

ORGANIZATIONS THIS CALL FOR PROPOSALS AIMS TO SUPPORT
The General Call for Proposals 2025 “Democracy and rights: building a future with justice and equality” aims to support the strengthening of institutional capacity of groups, collectives, and organizations that work in defense of rights, with the purpose of countering setbacks and promoting progress in the democratic sphere, as well as supporting vulnerable groups in their quest for justice and equality, for example:

• That act in defense of women’s rights, particularly Black women, Indigenous women, women from traditional populations, women from the LGBTQIAPN+ community, and women with disabilities;
• That act in defense of rural workers in their struggle for land and territory rights;
• That work to prevent violence against defenders of socio-environmental rights defenders and the unequal impacts of climate change, such as environmental racism and calls for climate justice, both in urban and rural areas, especially in marginalized areas;
• That aim to tackle racism and support the anti-racist struggle, especially in the scope of religious racism, promoting the rights of terreiro communities (traditional people of Afro-Brazilian religion) and valuing Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Amerindian religions, as well as combating all forms of violence practiced, encouraged or failed to be repressed by the State;
• That act in defense of the rights of migrants and refugees;
• That seek to defend the right to health, especially in the promotion of sexual and reproductive rights, as well as in its interface with the drug policy reform, food security, and maternity mortality.

IMPORTANT DIMENSIONS FOR PROJECT SELECTION AND APPROVAL

This call for proposals aims to support proposals covering the multiple dimensions of institutional strengthening, including the following examples: 

• Institutional planning;

• Enhancement of internal financial management processes; 

• Staff professional development;

• Development of internal monitoring, evaluation, and learning systems;
• Specific plannings (fundraising, strategic communication, advocacy, comprehensive safety, etc.);

We will also consider projects that focus on—either solely or jointly with strengthening of institutional capacity—actions in defense of rights (advocacy, social mobilization, community outreach, and training). Thus, the call for proposals encourages the submission of projects featuring initiatives that:

• Aim to reflect on the current scenario in order to develop counter-narratives against hate speech/intolerance/misinformation;
• Create campaigns and actions to promote dialogue with the general public and awareness on the importance of democracy, fostering a democratic culture.

It is worth noting that proposals outside these specific categories are still welcome, provided they are strategic and relevant to the defense of human rights by the organizations responding to this call.

In addition, we will observe the following conditions:

• Formulation of expected results that are comprehensive and feasible;
• Adoption of a strategic rights-oriented approach;
• Coordinated actions;
• Adequacy of the budget to the proposed activities;
• Focus on the racial, ethnic, and gender dimensions that determine the multiple violations in the current background;
• Regional diversity;
• Existence of links between the proposing organization and the groups and/or communities affected by the problem to be addressed;
• WE WILL NOT FUND initiatives EXCLUSIVELY geared towards income generation, entrepreneurship, professional or educational training, after-school programs, cultural production, welfare support, or academic research.

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR PROJECT?
Proposals may be submitted from December 13, 2024 to March 10, 2025, by 6 p.m. (GMT-3).

Projects to compete for Brazil Human Rights Fund grants must be submitted through the Project Portal. Please follow the instructions below, based on the status of your group/organization:

• If you have already submitted projects, access the portal through this link, insert your username and password. If you cannot remember your password, click “Esqueci a senha” and follow the instructions to create a new password. Access the detailed instructions here..
• If you are registering for the first time, access the portal, click “Primeiro Acesso” and fill in your group’s details. Access the detailed instructions here..

Application must be done at once since the portal does not permit saving part of the completed form to finish it later.

Therefore, we provide an editable version of the draft application form (click here to access it). This version is for informational purposes only and is not valid as an application. In addition, we offer a budget template to be attached to the system (click here to download the template).

Don’t leave it to the last moment: create/update your password or register your organization, group, or collective now and send your project the earliest possible. Proposals can only be submitted online. We do not receive proposals by e-mail, nor do we accept projects delivered directly to the Brazil Fund’s headquarters.

We will not accept proposals sent after 6 p.m. (GMT-3) of March 10, 2025. 

The Brazil Human Rights Fund will not extend the deadline for this call.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE PROJECT AFTER IT IS SENT TO THE BRAZIL FUND?
The Brazil Human Rights Fund’s team carries out an initial assessment of all projects received and, afterwards, the projects are forwarded to an Evaluation Committee composed of independent experts, with no connection to the Foundation. The Committee will convene to recommend which projects will be supported and submitted to the Brazil Fund’s management for approval.

ANNOUNCEMENT OF WINNING PROPOSALS
The result of the evaluation process will be announced as of June 27, 2025, exclusively on Brazil Fund’s website and social media channels.

IN THE EVENT OF QUESTIONS
Questions will be answered only by email, please write to [email protected].

Questions about the application mechanisms will be answered through the e-mail [email protected].

Please note: before submitting your question, we suggest that you carefully read the full call for proposals, with the guidelines contained herein and the “Frequently Asked Questions” section. If you still have any questions, please write to us.

You can also download the call for proposal PDF, with all the information and links for the application, by clicking here.