Africa - Impact Seed Fund 2026_ENG

Ends on

Africa Impact Seed Funding (ISF) 2025 Guidelines (ENG) (FR) 

 Themes:  

It is mandatory for applicants to read through our full version guidelines (PDF format) in this link: Guidelines

The Impact Seed Funding (ISF) is a micro-scale education grant that aims to support a range of education activities that can enrich the perspectives and knowledge on the socio-ecological challenges, solutions, and innovation about  issues of rainforest, oceans, climate and labor crisis impact to the university/school community, specifically students and educators. 

The main objective of the grant is to cultivate more curious, informed, empathetic communities on the underreported issues of Oceans and Climate change. Ultimately it aims to inspire change of perspectives, narratives, and actions amongst the communities. The Africa ISF projects will put the Pulitzer Center’s Climate & Labor, Rainforest, Transparency and Governance as well as Oceans Reporting Network (ORN) stories at the center of its engagement and activities. 

The stories contributed by Pulitzer Center's fellows and grantees are representations of the passion of journalists being compelled to report on issues that matter around the world. These reports often bring first perspectives from the field, such as farmers and local communities affected by climate change. These reportages produce a lot of high-quality visuals, so that they are expected to be able to convey the complex issues in ways that are interesting and easy-to-understand.

We believe in the power of knowledge and the role of education and educators in addressing the multidisciplinary problems in rainforests, oceans and climate crisis. Hence, The Africa ISF is designed to provide seed funds for educators and researchers in Africa to unlock further impact from the reportages by the Pulitzer Center’s grantees and fellows, to increase awareness of urgent Ocean and climate issues among communities in the continent. 

The Africa ISF will provide micro-scale grants to:

  • Initiate new collaborations or develop existing collaborations among teachers, researchers, students, and journalists;
  • Increase engagement between education communities, journalists, and local communities;
  • Stimulate the use of creative visuals (e.g., comics, animated videos, photos, short videos, documentary, podcasts), data visuals and information from the reportages in teaching materials, student activities, curriculum and class materials, or scientific publications; 
  • Stimulate the introduction and promotion of DEI friendly tools in teaching materials, student activities, curriculum and scientific publications. (DEI = Diversity, Equity and Inclusion). Gender equality and Handicap issues among young students to be prioritized. 
  • Facilitate the adoption of featured findings in the reportages to relevant research and other scientific products.

The Africa ISF is designed to be flexible and responsive to educator and community needs, allowing applicants to establish activities linked to urgent issues in the Environmental, Oceans and Climate crisis.   

The Africa ISF grants will range from USD $2,000 to $3,500. We expect that projects will be implemented within a four-months timeline after approval.  

Requirements

  • The project must center around the stories reported by the Rainforest Grantees and Fellows or Climate & Labor grantees;
  • The activity must showcase an intended impact towards the audience of the academic/school community (students or Fellow lecturers/researchers), or civil society;
  • The project must be implemented in consultation with the relevant Pulitzer Center’s grantees or Fellows; 
  • The project must demonstrate a strong Diversity, Equity and Inclusion approach; 
  • Applicants must deliver financial and narrative reports at the end of the grant period, detailing costs and results. 

For your reference, all Pulitzer Center supported reportages can be access on our website here https://pulitzercenter.org 

 Type of Activities

Examples of successful ISF grant activities and outputs may include, but are not limited to:

  • Student Engagement:                                                   
    • Insertion in teaching materials, on-campus debates, social issues hackathons, student-led debates and dialogues
    • Visuals production and dissemination (short videos, documentary, podcast, content);
    • On-campus mini exhibition 
    • Journalism workshop for student press clubs

  • Mobility/local Community Engagement: Knowledge exchange activities, student visits, biodiversity expeditions, citizen journalism  
  • Support for Research Activities: Data adoption to improve ongoing research accuracy, insertion of data or knowledge in a book chapter

 Eligibility

Applicants must be 

  • lecturers or researchers, 
  • k12 teachers, 
  • Student groups based in Africa

 

Project Duration 

The maximum duration of the proposed collaboration is four months. Once the funding is approved and a grant agreement has been signed by the Pulitzer Center, funds will be transferred to the successful principal applicant. Formal project start and end dates will be established in the grant agreement. 

 

Submission Process

The application must include the following:

  • An overview of the proposed project in no more than 400 words. This must include the objectives, proposed activities, intended impact,rationale of the proposed project,
  • Target audience & projection of total audience, strategy,
  • Detailed timeframe,
  • A preliminary budget estimate, including a basic breakdown of costs, 
  • If the proposed activities include knowledge exchange activities with forest communities, a statement by a member of the community showing a consent by them must be presented. This can be in the form of a message or letter,
  • If the activities include content production, you must include a concept note explaining how you would produce it and outputs that you are aiming at,  
  • A copy of a curriculum vitae, including three professional references (heads of departments or leads in your workplace must be included). The references should be in the form of letters of recommendation.   

Timeline

  1. Application process: March - Apr 15, 2026
  2. Selection process: April 15 - May 06, 2026
  3. Grants announcement: May 07, 2027
  4. Briefing and grants administration: May 07  - May 30, 2026
  5. Implementation duration: June 1 - Dec 15, 2026
  6. Project reporting and closure: December 15, 2026 - January 10, 2027   

For more information, please contact the responsible manager:

Eric Selemani (Africa Education Program Manager) : eselemani@pulitzercenter.org 

Read the Guidelines  (Lire en Français) 

Read Articles/Stories Here: 

We use Submittable to accept and review our submissions.
Continue