ERA – LGBTI Equal Rights Association for the Western Balkans and Turkey is launching a call for proposals within the project “The Time is Now: Consolidating Regional Efforts for Advancing LGBTI Rights and Equality in the Western Balkans and Turkey” (IPA 2017/394-394) funded by the European Union.
The call will be open until 04 April 2022, at 23:59 CET and any application submitted after the deadline will be automatically rejected.
LGBTI civil society organizations working on LGBTI+ issues, in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey, are invited to submit project proposals, provided that they fulfil the eligibility criteria for the call as listed below. 
In order to be eligible to submit the application, the applicant must be:

Registered or non-registered non-profit organizations. In the case of non-registered organizations, an organization that would serve as a fiscal sponsor should be proposed.  
Civil society organization working predominantly towards the advancement of the position of the LGBTI community;
Established in one of the grant scheme countries (Albania, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Turkey) and focused on implementing activities with the LGBTI community;
Must not be a partner organization under the project “The Time is Now: Consolidating Regional Efforts for Advancing LGBTI Rights and Equality in the Western Balkans and Turkey” (IPA 2017/394-394);
Directly responsible for the preparation and management of the project and not acting as an intermediary;
Established or active for at least one year before opening of this Call for Proposals.

Evaluation and selection of the projects will be made based on the following criteria – relevance of the action and its compatibility with the objectives of the grant programme under which the call for proposals is being financed, quality of application, clear goals, visible results, expected impact and sustainability of the action, past experience in LGBTI related work, commitment to protection and promotion of human rights of LGBTI persons, quality of work plan with cost-effective budget proposal for the upcoming 6 to 8 months. Priority will be given to smaller grass-root LGBTI organizations, and LGBTI organizations operating outside of the capital cities. The entire granting scheme must be completed by December 15, 2022. All narrative and financial reports be approved and cleared by 31 December 2022.
The priorities of this Call for Proposals are:
1) Support to the LGBTI CSOs in management of their own operations, development and progress, achievement of legal and financial sustainability and autonomy, increase of accountability and representativeness in becoming a strong voice in policy and legal reform, with particular focus on grass-root organizations at the local level; 
2) To strengthen regional networking and partnership building among CSOs, while implementing and maintaining a strategic approach towards networking and leveraging regional cooperation to advance LGBTI rights nationally;
3) To effectively protect, support, promote, monitor and advocate for human rights and fundamental freedoms of LGBTI people in WB&T on national, regional and international levels, particularly in the context of EU integration processes.
To read the full Call for Proposals, click here. 
To download the Application form, click here. 
To download the Budget template, click here. 
In addition, we are organizing two informational sessions, which you are invited to attend in case you have any questions. The sessions will be held via zoom, on 22 March 10:00 CET and 25 March 14:00 CET. To join the session click here. 
You can reach out to us for any additional questions by writing to us at office@lgbti-era.org Deadline for requesting any additional clarifications is 30 March.