The Process

The application process: Our application process takes between four-to-eight months depending on the complexity of the project and outcomes to be achieved. We conduct due diligence on each proposal received and get to know potential grantees and their objectives. Our goal is to fund well managed organizations with programs that attempt to set high standards for maximum impact. Our selection process is stringent and may require considerable information about the organization and the proposed project. We employ an online application process divided into distinct stages. 

Stage I: Project Profile Form.  We ask you to submit a Project Profile Form (PPF) and POF formatted budget worksheet through our online application system.  A program staff member will contact you and work with you to make sure any Stage I questions or concerns are addressed; the PPF, including project expenses, and these preliminary questions and your responses are submitted to the Board.  If accepted, you will be invited to submit a full application. 

Stage II:  Full Application.  Our online application system provides you with our full application format and detailed budget worksheet.  The application should be no more than ten (10) pages in length, you will be able to include addendums to explain additionals  points.  The full application is due in approximately one month. The Board will review and study the application and detailed budget before a funding decision is made.  In most cases, a site visit is required prior to funding approval.

Stage III:  Funding Agreement and/or Promissory Note.  Incorporated into the funding agreement document and/or promissory note is the dispersment schedule, the reporting schedule, and the loan payback schedule (if applicable).  Once agreed upon, funding is dispersed via wire transfer.

How to Complete the Online Project Profile

Each section numbered below directly correlates with the numbered section in our on-line project profile.  In the sections where we ask for information presented in a narrative form, your answers will be limited by word count; in order to be as responsive as possible to you and other applicants we have to limit the project profile to two pages.  You will be given ample opportunity to provide us with additional information during the entire application process.

You will be able save your project profile form if you need additional time to complete it.  To do this click on SAVE at the bottom of the form.  When finished you may print out a copy for your records by clicking on PRINT.

   

1.   Organization name, contact information.  We want to know how to reach you. Please use your organization's legal name. Please make sure you fill out all fields, including the web address.

  

1.a  Fiscal sponsor.  Some organizations are represented by a U.S.-based 501(C)3 and receive U.S. funding via these intermediaries.  Usually the organizations are two separate entities. This is not the same as having a U.S.-based office that does fundraising for your project.  If you have a separate entity raising funds for you, please provide us with their information.

  

2.   CEO/Executive Director.  We want to know who’s ultimately responsible for the project.  Please make sure the email address is included.

 

3.   Contact Person.  Please make sure this person is able to answer detailed questions about the project or is able to direct us to the most knowledgeable person about your project.

 

4. Geographic areas served by this project.  We fund projects in rural Peru and will not fund projects in the city of Lima.  Identifying where your project will be implemented helps us in refining our funding strategy within certain geographic areas.  Additionally, we encourage networking among our grantees with projects in the same areas.  Please make sure you include as much pertinent information about the geographic area that can affect the project- either positively or negatively. 

 

5. Beneficiaries.   Please provide us with the number of beneficiaries directly and indirectly benefiting from this project.  We also ask you to give us a written description of the relationship between the project’s goals and the people it is designed to help.  You will be limited to 100 words.

 

6.  Type of funding requested.  As we are a private foundation we are able to offer our grantees different manners of funding depending on what makes sense for the project, your organization, and our investment goals.  We encourage applicants to think beyond the normal “grant” and consider a variety of funding options, such as: loans, matching/challenge grants, guaranteed loans, etc.  We will entertain requests for funding that are part grant and part loan, and in fact, we prefer this combination and encourage it whenever it makes sense for the project proposed.

 

7.   Preliminary Budget Download/Upload.  Reviewing a project from both a narrative perspective, as well as a budgetary perspective, gives us a broader view of the project’s scope and readiness for funding.  We have provided you a budget worksheet to download to use in creating a preliminary budget. Once you have filled it out please upload it as part of your funding request.  This is a PRELIMINARY budget.  We understand that it may change as the project is closer to being finalized.   Please note that the budget worksheet is meant to represent the project’s total budget NOT just the portion you are requesting from Peru Opportunity Fund.

 

8. Main objective and specific purpose for this grant/loan.    In 300 words or less please provide us, in a concise and thoughtful way:  what it is you want to do, why do you want to do it, and why do you think it’ll work.

 

9.  How does this project fit into the purpose and mission of your organization’s work in Peru.  In 100 words or less tell us why and how this project will help your organization achieve its long-term goals.  This gives us an idea of how your organization thinks strategically and how this project fits into the bigger picture of your work in Peru.

 

10. Description and methodology.  Now that you’ve concisely told us what it is you want to do and why you want to do it, tell how you plan to do it.  If your methodology is complex, say so, but provide as complete of an overview as possible.  Please refrain from using development jargon.  Many of our board members are not familiar with it and it detracts from understanding how you plan to accomplish the project’s objectives.

 

11.  Results and impact.  We want to know what changes in behavior or changes in economic status you anticipate from the implementation of your project. Most importantly we want to know if you plan to measure these results and how you plan to measure them.  We are fully aware that an explanation of a project’s impact and results can be complex and in the full application stage we provide you with an impact matrix form to help define measurements and impact.  In this section of the application submission process we want to be assured that your organization has the means, skills, and knowledge to adequately define baseline data and measure results during the course of the project and that monitoring and evaluation is built into the program’s design.

 

12. Executing period.  We understand that the project’s start date is usually dependant on when funding is secured.  In this section we want to know if the project profile you are submitting is a multi-year project and if it is, for what year are you requesting funding.  We have no problems entering a project mid-implementation; we just want to know where it is in the project’s life-cycle. 

 

13. Tax status.  We are a private foundation and by law our grantees (or their fiscal sponsor) must either have 501(c) 3 status or if our grantee is a a Peruvian NGO, it must have systems in place to provide us with the project documentation we require to perform Expenditure Responsibility or Equivalency Determination.

 

14. Date of incorporation.  We’d like to know how long you’ve been doing what you do.

 

15. Media.  If possible and appropriate we ask that you attach a maximum of ten photos (100MB) that would help bring your project to life for us.  If it’s a new project showing us the problem may be in order; if it’s a project replication or a continuation of a previous project, show us the outcomes or process currently underway.  This is optional and will not reflect negatively on your application if photos are not available

After Funding:

Monitoring and evaluation: Peru Opportunity Fund works hand-in-hand with individual grantees to monitor the local impact of each grantee’s program.

Financial accountability: Peru Opportunity Fund works closely with grantees and requires Expenditure Responsibility guidelines to be followed.

Site visits:  Staff and Trustees of Peru Opportunity Fund frequently visit Peru and will, most likely, request a site visit.

External communications:  Once one becomes a Peru Opportunity Fund grantee, we will ask your permission to use case studies, photos, beneficiary and grantee profiles, project evaluation studies, etc. as part of our external communications program.  We are a learning foundation and we'd like to promote your organization and your successes in our annual report and other investment reports.

 

BEFORE APPLYING please make sure you've read our application guidelines.