The Stone Family Foundation funds water, sanitation and hygiene projects (either integrated or as standalone projects) in both urban and rural settings. The Stone Family Foundation’s role is to help the sector make the shift to new ways of increasing access to WASH as quickly as possible.
Type of Support
Market-based Funding: Where goods or services generate revenues that cover the operation and maintenance costs required to ensure ongoing access.
The Foundation focuses its funding on market-based solutions as it sees this as the most promising way to meet the scale and urgency of the need for improved access to safe WASH.
Testing for scale: The funding is used to provide seed capital to help exciting and promising new approaches prove their model. The Foundation sees its niche as supporting projects that have successfully piloted their approach but are still high risk and need funding to get to the point where they are attractive to other investors.
The Foundation’s preference is to fund implementation and delivery, and it will only fund research and capital costs when they are closely linked to effective service delivery.
Focused on vulnerable populations: Projects must focus on providing services or goods to low-income households. The Foundation is interested in providing water and sanitation services for domestic use rather than, for example, water for agricultural use.
Eligibility Criteria
- The Foundation funds organisations that meet our strategic aims and can clearly demonstrate social impact and public benefit.
- The Foundation’s preference is to fund projects in countries where it has already invested funds like Cambodia, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
- The Foundation is also willing to consider funding elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, and south and south-east Asia, where:
- The proposed project is a strong fit with the Foundation’s strategy; and
- The country has a demonstrable need for WASH services, a stable operating environment and one that is ideally amenable to market-based approaches.
Types of funding
- Seed capital– It is given in the form of grant or investment to help exciting and promising new approaches prove their model and scale.
- Multi -Year grants-The Foundation wants to develop strong relationships with a relatively small number of organisations, and so its preference is to provide large multi-year grants.
- Small Grants– The Foundation also make smaller grants of between £150,000 and £500,000 over a shorter period for projects that are higher risk or at an earlier stage and have the potential to absorb larger grants/investments in the future.
Application process
- The Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals, but instead seek out opportunities in the sector that meet their strategy and priorities through research and outreach. This is a flexible and iterative process.
- The foundation invites applicants to submit a concept note, and then a proposal if the Foundation’s trustees are interested in funding. They are a flexible and throughout this process are happy to discuss the type, size and structure of funding that best meets the need of a prospective grantee.
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