Dear colleagues,

We hope that you, your team, and your loved ones are healthy and safe. We are in a difficult moment – due to the impact of COVID-19 on all of our communities and this critical juncture for racial justice  – but we wanted to reach out to share some new information with you.  In response to increasing restrictions on civic space due to COVID-19, Lifeline is temporarily expanding its advocacy grant criteria to enable CSOs to hold governments accountable for such violations. Whereas our advocacy grants typically fund projects focused on freedom of association and assembly, we can now temporarily support projects that seek to address the impact of COVID-19 on a broader range of civic space issues, including freedom of expression; access to information and accountability; abuse of executive power; and misuse of surveillance and data.

Attached you will find a summary of the three types of short-term assistance we can provide – emergency assistance, resiliency, and advocacy grants. We hope that you will share this information with other partners or CSOs that you feel might qualify for support, particularly those representing marginalized communities.  For more information, please check www.csolifeline.org.  As always, we welcome referrals from trusted partners.

We look forward to engaging with you in thinking about more innovative ways to support CSOs on the front lines of human rights and social justice work around the world.

Best

Danya

The Lifeline Fund for Embattled CSOs provides emergency financial assistance to civil society organizations (CSOs) under threat or attack, as well as rapid response advocacy and resiliency grants to support CSOs in responding to broader threats against civic space. Founded in 2011, Lifeline is a consortium of 7 international non-governmental organizations supported by 19 governments that aims to push back against civic space threats. The Lifeline consortium is led by Freedom House and consists of Front Line Defenders, CIVICUS, International Center for Not-For-Profit Law (ICNL), People in Need (PIN), FORUM-ASIA, and Swedish International Liberal Center (SILC). Since its founding, Lifeline has provided grants to 2,222 at-risk civil society organizations (CSOs) in 115 countries.