Spark Microgrants

to catalyze change, spark employs and trains local university graduates through an in-country facilitator fellowship program. facilitators reach out to infrastructure-poor villages and engage them in a five-month planning process, leading them through a structured series of weekly meetings. community members build consensus on a communal goal, identify a project to realize the goal, develop a project implementation strategy, budget and democratically elect a leadership committee. after each community develops their own project proposal, the spark leadership team liaises with sector-specific experts to provide project-specific feedback to each community. community members integrate this expert feedback and finalize their proposal, which includes community contributions towards costs that ensures community ownership. spark then awards a one-time microgrant of up to $10,000 for project implementation, providing six months of management support and two years of follow-up support. communiti