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At least one party applying for the Collaboration Grant must be a current MLC Member. Applications may involve multiple MLC Members, or one MLC Member plus one or more external partners.

You can view the full list of MLC Members here: millionlives.co/members

Yes, your organisation can still apply if in partnership with an MLC Member.

While non-MLC members cannot apply individually or with another non-MLC Member, they can apply if they partner with at least one MLC Member.

Yes, it is ok for one MLC Member to apply independently. However, given the scope and ambition of this award, we expect that most ideas will involve an element of collaboration.

Not a particular sector, per se, but all projects need to be in support of women economic empowerment and must have the potential of generating an income increase of at least 30% for 100,000+ women in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2026.

We are looking for projects that can prove - by the end of the initial 12-month grant phase - that they have the potential to scale up to impact 100,000 or more women by the end of 2026. Please note that successful awardees may be eligible for additional scale-up funding following the successful completion of the pilot phase.

No, not all parties are not required to be based in Sub-Saharan Africa but we do require that one of them is to be able to provide country-specific context and manage the in-field element of the project.

Yes! We would encourage organisations and MLC Members to collaborate and come up with as many inspiring ideas as you can, so it is possible to apply multiple times with different partners and/or different ideas.

Your application will be reviewed by the MLC Team as well as the Bayer Foundation team and other partners. We will reach out to you by mid-November 2023 to let you know if your Expression of Interest has been shortlisted for Stage 2.

September 18th - Applications open

October 18th - Stage 1, Expression of Interest deadline

Mid-November - Notification of application proceeding to Stage 2

Week of December 4th - Stage 2, Virtual pitch events

December 20th - Notification of application proceeding to Stage 3

Mid-February 2024 - Stage 3, Detailed application deadline

March 2024 - Final outcome communication

We are happy to accept proposals from collaborating partners that have worked with one another in the past.

Yes, current and/or past Bayer Foundation grantees can apply, provided that they are (or are working with) a recognised MLC Member.

The first round of the collaboration grant will support two projects. We hope to have the chance to expand this opportunity to support more collaborations in the future.

The project supported through this initiative should aim to draw on the respective strengths of the collaborating organisations in order to accelerate the scaling of each of the partners’ impact (as opposed to creating an entirely new product or service for instance). Projects should look to test assumptions around a collaborative model and should ideally involve tangible in-field testing.

The collaboration could involve a scale up to a different country.

We require one application per collaboration idea. We recommend you work closely together on your submission.

If you have other questions about the Collaboration Grant initiative, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us by email: admin@millionlives.co