Two leaders from Spark Fund in LAC.

The Spark Fund

The Spark Fund is youth-led fund that invests in youth-led and youth-focused groups. We work closely with 56 community-based organizations – selected by young leaders – that are driving transformation change across the world by addressing social issues from climate change, mental health, LGBTQ+ rights to gender justice and more.

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Placing key funding decisions in the hands of young people representing their communities.

Youth panelists design the application process and determine the grantmaking criteria to award funds to youth-led and youth-focused organizations. They use a multilingual digital platform to make decisions together.

Our Spark Fund partners receive flexible funding that enables them to experiment, collaborate, and learn. They also have access to capacity development support and the opportunity to build  connections with each other across the globe.

Global Fund for Children launched the Spark Fund in 2021 as a pooled fund that brings together funders committed to supporting impactful youth-led participatory grantmaking. After a successful pilot round, we’ve expanded the fund to launch additional rounds focused on mental health and climate action, two issues the youth panelists identified as urgent priorities for young people. There is room for additional funders to join the Spark Fund and help launch new rounds focused on specific themes and/or geographies.

Global Youth-Led Change
Youth-led climate action
Youth leading on racial justice and mental health
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Voices & stories

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Strong partnerships power our work

More than a process to provide funding, it was a window to give a hand to many youth organizations so that they could continue to fight hunger, the environmental crisis, and violence, among other issues in their communities. It was also an opportunity to learn about and make visible thousands of problems and how youth leadership is willing to confront them.

Flor Campos Rivas, Spark Fund panelist, Peru

Being a part of the Spark Fund, our growth as an NGO has skyrocketed in a number of ways, we have successfully officiated our NGO and programs. With the assistance of the flexible funding, we were able to participate in National Forums which we are now a huge part of the Technical Working Groups in Lesotho. We feel grateful for this spark as we have moved from the conceptual to developing stage.

Nthabiseng Mohanela, NomaPads Foundation, Lesotho

The Spark Fund gave us freedom and flexibility, and it truly helped us – when our team would suggest new ideas, we could say, “Yes!” We are now able to better structure our activities in terms of what we need.

Team member, Feminismd, Moldova