About

The Refugee-led Innovation Fund is currently open to applications from organizations led by forcibly displaced or stateless people in all countries.

The Refugee-led Innovation Fund champions the creativity of all displaced and stateless people. It aims to reshape their participation in the delivery of humanitarian work by ensuring they take centre stage in the decisions affecting their lives, leading the identification of needs and the design of innovative solutions.

The Fund provides holistic support – combining financial resources, mentoring, and other expertise – directly to organizations led by forcibly displaced and stateless people, to enable them to design and deliver new interventions that have a lasting positive impact on their communities.

The Refugee-led Innovation Fund proposes a fundamental shift in programme architecture. It takes a grassroot approach whereby people who have experienced forced displacement or statelessness are directly provided with meaningful financial resources and support to implement innovative approaches.

What the Fund offers?

• Programme and project management support: Supported organizations will receive assistance from UNHCR and experts to help build their capacity to design and implement programmes effectively.

• Technical support and expertise: Needs-based specialist advice will be offered, on topics ranging from technology to legal support and innovation methodologies.

• Peer-to-peer networking: Supported organizations will be encouraged to engage with each other, share experiences, learn from each other, and explore partnerships.

• An emphasis on learning: Support will be provided to enable supported organizations to measure outcomes, assess their progress, and gather information to support growth. They will be encouraged to document, share, and make use of relevant learnings. Discussion and reflection with their communities will enable them to incorporate and respond to feedback.

Funding Information

• Organizations can apply for up to 45,000 USD.

Ineligibility Criteria

• Individual applicants are not eligible.

Eligibility

• The Fund supports innovation by all organizations led by people with lived experience of forced displacement or statelessness including refugees, asylum-seekers, the internally displaced, returnees, and stateless people that are recognized within their communities due to their past significant contributions.

• Applicants are required to apply as a team, representing an existing organization made up of multiple community members. Organizations must demonstrate a collective structure to qualify.

• The Fund accepts applications from both registered and unregistered organizations that are well known in their communities due to their past significant contributions and initiatives.

• Additional attention will be given to ensuring organizations led by LGBTIQ+ persons, women, people with disabilities, internally displaced and stateless individuals, Indigenous populations, and other underrepresented groups receive support and encouragement to apply to the Fund.

Post Date: July 22, 2025