Institutional Grants: Democratic Governance

The Tinker Foundation's Institutional Grants program focuses on promoting democratic governance in Latin America, emphasizing justice and the rule of law. With over sixty years of experience, it supports civil society organizations that address critical challenges. Grant amounts typically range from $50,000 to $150,000 annually, for up to three years, fostering innovative solutions and collaborative efforts among stakeholders to enhance accountability and access to justice, especially for marginalized groups.

NOTE: We invite a limited number of proposals from the LOI process, and not all requested proposals will receive funding.
Tinker realizes its mission by providing funding to civil society organizations – among them nonprofit entities, research institutes, and universities – working to address the region’s most pressing challenges.
For that reason, we encourage comparative and collaborative work, and support grantees to learn from others’ experiences.
The Foundation’s Institutional Grants program seeks to support changes to policy and practice that improve the lives of Latin Americans. The Foundation’s funding encompasses three program areas in which research, innovation, scaling of proven models, and exchange of ideas have the potential to make significant, positive impact.
Democratic GovernanceEducationSustainable Resource Management
Over the past three decades, the Tinker Foundation has supported Latin American organizations working to advance the rule of law as a foundational element of democratic societies. Beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, Tinker provided funding to seminal efforts promoting judicial reform across the region. In the 2000s, we supported organizations across the Americas expanding access to pro bono legal services.
Today Tinker seeks to build on and deepen this commitment by prioritizing projects focused on justice and rule of law. We will continue to review and consider other Democratic Governance projects on an ad hoc basis through our letter of inquiry process but anticipate focusing our resources on these core issues.
We invite projects that work toward creating and consolidating systems of justice that are independent, effective, reliable, equitable, and transparent. We will consider proposals focused at the national or sub-national level, including those with comparative or regional components. Projects may relate to what could be called the “unfinished work of judicial reform,” i.e., the challenges and opportunities involved with implementing and operating within more recently adopted structures and frameworks.
Initial areas of interest include:
Promoting transparency and accountability in the justice sector, both from within justice institutions and without (civil society monitoring, etc.)The selection, training, and assessment of justice sector actors, as well as developing next-generation talentIncreasing access to justice, particularly for vulnerable and marginalized groups
Tinker will consider a range of project types and methodologies that match our overall grant-making parameters and capacity. These may include research and policy analysis, experimentation with new models and early scale-up of proven approaches, and exchange of knowledge across countries and contexts. We generally do not fund litigation efforts.
We will refine our interest areas and approaches as we learn, along with our grantees, from this work.
Funding
Grant amounts vary by program area and project. However, grants typically range between $50,000 to $150,000 per year, for up to three years. We also welcome requests for smaller grants in support of more bounded projects or to complement other resources.

Eligibility

The Tinker Foundation provides grants only to organizations that are charitable in nature, i.e., with a United States 501(c)(3) tax status or its equivalent if the organization is located outside the U.S. Organizations from Latin America do not need to have United States 501(c)(3) status.The project must be focused on the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries of Latin America, including:Argentina
Uruguay
VenezuelaProject activities must take place in our areas of geographic interest.The Foundation funds research and advocacy, experimentation, scaling up of promising interventions, and exchange of knowledge and models – with the overarching goal of contributing to large-scale change in policy and practice.Funded activities may include, but are not restricted to, community engagement and capacity-building, applied research, measurement and evaluation activities, and workshops and conferences related to the Foundation’s areas of interest.

Ineligibility

Our funds may not be used for:Individuals, including individual research
Lobbying and Political Campaigning Rules for Grantees)
School tuition or scholarships, or child sponsorships
Support for building construction or major equipment purchases
Art museum collections, films, and exhibits
EndowmentsWe rarely fund capital equipment purchases on any single tangible item that has a useful life of more than one year and a value equal to or greater than $5,000.