Mission

Spark MicroGrants partners with rural poor communities to catalyze locally-led impact projects.

What We Do

Spark supports rural poor communities to design, implement and manage their own social impact projects. To date Spark has partnered with over 75 communities in Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi who have developed local project plans and are in the process of implementing them, positively impacting over 64,000 lives.

HOW WE DO IT:
Spark runs an in country fellowship program for local university graduates in the countries we work. Fellows receive hands on leadership and facilitation training. Fellows reach out to rural poor communities and take each through a 3-5 month project planning process where the community votes on their most pressing problem and builds a plan to address the problem. After plans are complete, Spark provides a microgrant to the community to enable project implementation. Communities are building schools, starting communal farms and more.

Differing from microfinance, Spark supports communities with organizational capacity building and a small grant – so they can invest in social impact.

Each partner community benefits through:
1. Launching a project to address a specific community based problem
2. Building internal capacity and drive to initiate local change

Since the community controls planning and spending, the projects are locally appropriate, effective and highly efficient. Spark guides each community through a three to five month project planning process, after which the project is implemented.