“Small and Mighty!” podcast

Small and Mighty! A UN Trust Fund podcast a five-episode series. The UN Trust Fund logo appears at the top right corner. Black and white cut outs of photos of project beneficiaries from UN Trust Fund grantees are at the bottom. The beneficiaries are both men and women, from all ethnicities.

Through the “Small and Mighty!” podcast series* (available on Spreaker, Spotify, SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts), the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women (UN Trust Fund) amplifies the voices of small civil society and women’s rights organizations that are leading initiatives to end violence against women and girls across the globe.  

In the five episodes, we hear directly from practitioners and advocates, many of whom are survivors of gender-based violence themselves, as they share their unique expertise and describe the empowering initiatives led by small organizations to prevent and address all forms of violence against women and girls. 

Background 

In 2014, the UN Trust Fund established a small grants modality** to improve access to funding for small women’s rights organizations, which are often left behind in the larger development aid architecture. It also committed in its Strategic Plan 2021-2025 to further support small organizations in their work to end violence against women and girls. 

Through this modality, the UN Trust Fund aims to debunk the myth that small women’s rights organizations do not have capacity to deliver, and has increased their access to resources and targeted capacity building to meet complex donor requirements. If adequately resourced, these organizations can make a huge difference in their communities and to the lives of women and girls. 

In 2016, the UN Trust Fund published it first Small Grants Analysis (from cycles 18 and 19), which confirmed that awarding more small grants had increased its overall support to small women’s rights organizations. 

 

*The views expressed in the podcast series are those of the speakers and do not necessarily represent the views of UN Women (managing the UN Trust Fund on behalf of the UN system), the UN or any of its affiliated organizations.   

**The UN Trust Fund’s small grants modality only applies to organizations with annual operational budgets below USD 200,000.