Spring Grant Call 2026

Projects to be implemented in the Middle East

Projects up to £100,000

General themes:

Making education safe and accessible

Improving its quality

Building a strong system to support it

All projects must offer practical interventions, addressing specific needs and presenting realistic solutions for refugee and displaced children and youth, with a strong emphasis on in person, formal education.

Please read our FAQs and Managing Director’s blog series before applying.

One application per organisation: each organisation should only apply for either AMF Small Grants Programme or AMF Spring Grant 2025. If you apply for both (even with different projects) it may invalidate both applications.

AMF’s objective is to support civil society institutions in the Middle East in delivering creative solutions to better life chances for displaced children and youth through education. We aspire to identify gaps in existing educational and protection systems that are failing to offer sustainable solutions to refugee children, youths, and their families.

For this call, we are focusing on the following area:

Creating direct pathways to formal education

All projects must propose innovative solutions to accessing formal education by presenting realistic solutions answering the specific needs of refugees in the context of the area or country they were forced to move to.

We define our terms as follows:

Innovation- Proposals should represent solutions to persistent problems that prevent children from accessing learning

Access- All projects will need to clearly show that beneficiaries will be easily able to access the offering and that any challenges have been overcome; the focus must be on the child/young person and they must directly benefit from the proposed action

Formal education- All projects will need to offer the highest quality education services, either within a recognised educational environment or with an aim to transitioning students into one; there does not necessarily need to be a connection to state or private schools, but the intervention must be organised in such a way that the teaching the children receive is of the highest level and is transferrable to whatever school/college/institution to which the children progress

Preference will be given to:

- Projects that take place in-person where possible, rather than through remote learning solutions

- Projects that benefit children aged 5-18

- Projects that are sustainable, or have sustainable elements, beyond the period of AMF’s involvement OR projects which have a natural, defined end-point

- Projects in which staff are able to commit to regular contact with AMF in order to communicate progress

- Projects that have ‘built in’ methods of obtaining service-user feedback

The proposed project:

- Must show clear innovation and therefore cannot be an existing project unless it is entering a markedly new phase of development; AMF will consider incorporating existing costs (if applicable) during the implementation of the new project if there is a demonstrably necessary link between the two

- Must propose AMF as the exclusive donor of the project (AMF should be the sole donor of the new project or “innovation”, however, it is understood that if the innovation is an addition to an existing project the latter may require involvement from other donors)

- Must clearly illustrate the organisation’s ability to effectively implement the project, and that it would provide value for money, constitute added value in the field and contain a clear monitoring process

- Must not have as an aim the promotion one religion or faith

- Must not duplicate work already in practice in the field

- Must target children or youths; AMF will consider projects for “youths” (defined by the UN as 15-24), however, our focus is on “children” (defined by the UN as aged under 18) so we would expect a significant proportion of any project targeting youths to include the 15-18 age-group

A special note on non-formal education:

Each grant cycle we receive around 50% applications from organisations seeking funding for non-formal education. Generally speaking, this is an area of interest for us, but we will only contribute towards projects that are a new aspect of an existing programme which promotes integration into formal education or a career.

If the innovation is attached to an existing non-formal education programme, there should be an existing path into formal education or a career. If the intention is to transition into formal education, it is absolutely essential that pupils are eligible to attend a formal education system within the locality of the project and that this is a feasible pathway for them (i.e., they have fulfilled necessary criteria, they have received tuition in the necessary language(s), travel is possible). Where the project is an innovation added to an existing education centre, we will be looking for statistics on the number of children who have successfully made the transition to formal education and without this information it is unlikely that funding will be granted. Likewise, for existing vocational training we will ask about pupils who successfully moved into a career.

Criteria and eligibility

Organisations can submit one application for any amount up to £100,000 for a defined project of up to three years’ duration.

While the full amount allocated to this call is £100,000, more than one organisation may be selected for funding, and only truly exceptional proposals are likely to be awarded the funding in its entirety. AMF will look favourably on proposals that show real commitment to being cost-effective and demonstrate a high level of value for money.

In order to be considered eligible, organisations must:

- Be a registered charity in the country in which they are headquartered; individuals who wish to apply can only do so in conjunction with a registered organisation (e.g. an academic researcher might apply with the backing of their university)

- Be able to meet our reporting requirements which will ultimately be decided between AMF and the grant recipient after a thorough review of the Full Application Form

- Have a Child Protection Policy in place that conforms to the laws of the country in which they operate and a clear methodology that demonstrates that it is appropriately and consistently applied

How to apply:

Concept Notes are invited via our online form between Tuesday, 20th January and Monday, 23rd February 2026. Successful submissions will be invited to make a full application by April 2026. Winners will be announced after June 2026 and projects submitted should have a start date no earlier than September 2026.

NB. No budget document required at Concept Note stage - just enter the ‘Amount Requested’ in the relevant box when the form opens.