Grantee Profile

Founded in 2010, Spark MicroGrants proves that community-driven development can be done at scale. Through its Facilitated Community Action Process (FCAP), Spark achieves local buy-in and ownership, both in regard to the projects being developed and commitment to community organizing and change. Spark’s novel approach for launching impoverished communities into action flips big aid on its head. It shifts the aid paradigm from prescriptive to participatory and empowers citizens as the lead decision-makers on development efforts in their own communities. Of the projects backed by Spark, 91 percent are sustaining and 87 percent have launched secondary projects on their own. Spark has partnered with 170+ villages across Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

About Our Grants

In 2023, the Woodcock Foundation awarded Spark MicroGrants a three-year, $660,000 grant for efforts to support community-driven development by enabling remote villages facing poverty to be the drivers of their own futures. In 2024, the Woodcock Foundation awarded a $7,500 capacity building grant to support leadership development and coaching needs.