WHO WE ARE

Our Story

Make It Grow is affiliated with the Institute for Sustainable Food, University of Sheffield, supported by the UKRI's Economic and Social Research Council. 

WHAT DO WE DO?

We support community-based, sustainable food initiatives to build capacity and create video proposals, in order to attract start-up (including crowd-sourced) funds and small grants.

We use participatory approaches and digital tools to support community organisations to develop skills to plan their projects, produce their own videos and pitch their ideas to funders.

In the face of today's multifaceted global challenges, community-based food initiatives are becoming increasingly important. It is important to acknowledge that great ideas for low-cost and dynamic solutions to food insecurity are often already present at the local grassroots level. However, community-based initiatives often have the least access to funding and the least capacity to develop funding proposals.

With access to the means of both generating and sharing video becoming ever more prevalent, it is important that organisations adapt grant-giving processes so that digital video can be mobilised in ways that enhance the accessibility of funding and give greater space to local initiatives and community voice. At the same time, it is also critical that community-based organisations build their own capacity to harness the power of video and related ICTs, to communicate their ideas and thus, become more capable of attracting start-up funds. 

Small Changes with Big Difference

Ten years ago, a handbook on "Making Video Proposals" was developed by Pamela Richardson for the United Nations Development Programme's Global Environment Facility Barbados office, as a first attempt to support community groups to make video applications for their Small Grants Programme.

Since then, digital technology has moved on apace, with smartphones, apps, video technologies and wi-fi becoming increasingly prevalent and easily accessible, even for lower income communities in the Global South. It is thus an apt moment to revise and update the methodological toolkits available to NGOs and community-based organisations (CBOs), to better support communities worldwide to create their own video proposals to submit to funding programs such as the Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme (GEF's SGP), as well as linking to crowd-funding platforms. 

OUR TEAM

The Make it Grow team is led by Dr Pamela Richardson and includes a growing collective of diversely skilled facilitators and experts. We are dedicated to amplifying the stories of community-based food initiatives around the world and to supporting grassroots innovation processes; building hope and capacity for a more inclusive and sustainable future.

Project Partners and Collaborators: 

United Nations Development Program Small Grants Programme, Zimbabwe

• Tsitsi Wutawunashe: National Coordinator
• Luckson Chapungu: Programme Assistant

Local Non-Profit Organisations:                                               

• ORAP
• JAIROS JIRI
• Trust Africa
• TSURO
• SCOPE
• Zimbabwe National Association for Mental Health
• Fambidzanai Permaculture Centre
• PADA Platform
• Hand in Hand Zimbabwe
• Gingie West Mining Syndicate Kwekwe
• Institute of Mining Research (IMR)

Participating Community Based Organisations: