Survivor Leadership Fund

Survivor Leadership Fund is sponsored by The Freedom Fund. The Survivor Leadership Fund provides unrestricted grants to survivor-led organizations in East Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, including Uganda. These grants are intended to build organizational capacity and impact, covering programs, staff, and office costs.

Survivor Leadership Fund | Freedom Fund The Survivor Leadership Fund is a groundbreaking intiative that provides unrestricted grants to survivor-led organisations to use as they see fit to build their capacity and grow their impact. The Survivor Leadership Fund provides one-year unrestricted grants of up to US $20,000 to survivor-led organisations, with a possible second-year grant of $25,000 for selected partners.

The grant is meant to support the organisation as a whole and can be used wherever it has decided it needs funding, including programs, staff and office costs. Organisations with one or more people in a leadership position who have lived experience of exploitation are eligible to apply. Leadership positions can include directors, deputy directors, senior management, and department heads.

However, anyone in the organisation can fill out and submit the application – it does not have to be someone who identifies as a survivor. Applicants who meet the grant criteria will be invited for a discussion about their work with a panel of Freedom Fund staff. For the current round of funding, the organisation must be located and operating within Nepal , with priority given to those in Madhesh and Bagmati Provinces.

Join us for an information session on Apr 22, 2026 at 10:45 am NPT For more details, please see the following reference materials: Application guide: English or Nepali Frequently asked questions: English or Nepali Call for applications: English or Nepali Applications are now open for organisations in Nepal.

The Freedom Fund believes we have a responsibility to support the leadership of those individuals who have experienced exploitation and oppression. We recognise that initiatives led by those with lived experience play a vital role in meeting the needs of victims and survivors of exploitation.

Survivor-led organisations are also ideally placed to provide expertise and leadership in tackling the systems and practices that allow modern slavery to persist. Yet organisations with survivors of modern slavery in key leadership positions are few and far between. And those organisations often struggle to access the core funding that enables them to become sustainable and impactful.

Too often, they are locked out by the demands of traditional donors and denied the space to build and grow. We set up the Survivor Leadership Fund because we believe survivor-led organisations can – and should – lead the way in the global movement to end modern slavery. Survivors with lived experience of exploitation know what is needed to support people at risk of exploitation, victims and survivors.

They have the legitimacy and expertise to advocate for the changes in policy and practice that can bring about an end to modern slavery. The power of trust-based funding We had never received major funding before the Survivor Leadership Fund. With the unrestricted nature of Survivor Leadership Fund...

we could do anything that supports the organisational development to individual capacity building, as well as community work and survivor leadership movement… we were also able to add other policies such as sexual harassment policies... we did not have electricity connection and we bought solar panels. Therefore, due to the unrestricted nature of the Survivor Leadership Fund, we were able to do quite a lot.

Survivor Leadership Fund grantee Piloting the Survivor Leadership Fund Since its inception, the Survivor Leadership Fund has supported dozens of survivor-led organisations in East Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America. Two years on, a new report looks back and evaluates the Fund’s impact and identifies its unique opportunities and areas for growth.

The report demonstrates the success of the Fund’s trust-based and inclusive funding model in both reaching and supporting survivor-led organisations. The report, based on an evaluation of the first round of funding in Kenya and Uganda, examines the experience of grantees throughout the grant-making process, and highlights some of the important components of the SLF, as identified by grantees.

These include the straightforward and accessible application process, minimal due diligence and reporting processes, and unrestricted funding. Crucially, it also highlights the flexibility, trust and agency that are at the heart of the SLF model. The power of trust: Unrestricted grants are going further than we imagined February 19, 2026 Article