FAQs

The Maternal & Infant Health Award is a public competition sponsored by The Patchwork Collective, with support from ICONIQ Impact and managed by Lever for Change. This award will split $1 million among up to five Finalists, then a $9 million grant will be awarded to one of the Finalists, who will be named the Maternal & Infant Health Awardee.

We welcome applications from organizations around the world. Organizations eligible to serve as the Lead Organization must be:

• An entity under section 501(c)(3) and 509(a)(1) or (2) of the Internal Revenue Code (“IRC”) that has received a tax determination letter from the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”).
• A private foundation under section 501(c)(3) of the IRC that has received a tax determination letter from the IRS.
• A fiscally-sponsored nonprofit organization.
• An entity organized under the laws of a foreign jurisdiction which has received a tax determination letter from the IRS or has been determined to be the equivalent of a section 501(c)(3) and 509(a)(1) or (2) entity by NGO Source for which an equivalency determination has not expired.
• An entity that is recognized under the law of the applicable jurisdiction as a non-governmental organization, an educational organization, a charitable organization, a social welfare organization, a not-for-profit organization, or similar-type entity that is not a for-profit organization or government agency.

The Lead Organization is a single legal entity that has the legal responsibility, authority for and control of the use of any grant funds, be responsible for the reporting on any grant funds, and must be able to exercise in fact and law direction, control, and supervision of the proposed project and the grant funds.

Eligible organizations are welcome to partner with for-profit companies, foundations, schools, colleges and universities, government agencies, individuals, and other entities in order to implement the initiative.

The Maternal & Infant Health Award seeks bold solutions that will improve and accelerate equitable maternal and infant health outcomes around the world. The Award will prioritize solutions that are led by and grounded in the communities they serve.

Successful projects will be:

• Community-Led: Actively shifting the balance of power to local communities, empowering proximate leaders, and fostering community ownership.
• Impactful: Addressing root causes and systemic barriers in a manner that significantly alters health outcomes for the communities most impacted by the issue with clear and measurable progress.  
• Durable: Creating sustainable sources of power, including financial resources, with which to support itself.  
• Feasible: Lead by a team with skills, capacity, and relationships to implement the proposed strategy or with a plan in place to build the requisite skills or strategic partners.  

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All applicants must submit a $10 million project budget. The final Awardee will receive a $9 million grant, with the remaining $1 million split between the Finalists. Following technical assistance, Finalists will have the opportunity to refine the $10 million budget submitted in their application.

You must first assess your fit and eligibility for the Maternal & Infant Health Award, and then register no later than Thursday, June 2, 2022, at 5:00 PM U.S. Pacific Time. Registration is required and is a simple two-step process. First, create a username and password and then check your inbox to confirm your registration. Next, complete the online registration form. Once you are registered, submit your application online no later than Thursday, June 30, 2022, at 5:00 PM U.S. Pacific Time.

Once the submission deadline passes, the Maternal & Infant Health Award team will perform an administrative review to confirm each submission meets the rules and application requirements before advancing to the required Peer-to-Peer Review.

During Peer-to-Peer Review, each lead applicant will be required to score and comment on five applications from other organizations. Top-scoring applications will move on to the Evaluation Panel and receive an additional review and comments from five expert reviewers. All reviewers will use the scoring rubric, and all scores will be statistically normalized to ensure fairness.

We will review the top-scoring submissions and request additional information as needed to select up to five Finalists based on considerations that may include, but are not limited to, Evaluation Panel resulting rank order, organizational capacity, geographic diversity, and feasibility. The donors will make the final determination of the five Finalists and the recipient of the $9 million Maternal & Infant Health Award.

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The most compelling solutions will provide information and examples that affirm the proposed approach. These can include formal or informal studies, observations, and other indicators of change as defined by a team’s community. Additionally, your strategy should outline clear outcomes and offer a realistic plan to monitor progress and measure impact.

Funds must be used for the solution described in the application, and may not be used for:

• Non-charitable purposes
• Funding a long-term endowment
• Aggregating philanthropic capital for the purpose of regranting to other organizations who are not partners in your application
• Engaging in lobbying and/or advocacy as the primary purpose of the project

No, their participation on the panel does not preclude your team from applying – in fact, we would welcome your application and encourage you to apply. As per our recusal policy (in full, below), should your team’s application advance to the Evaluation Panel review stage of the Award, we would at that point ask your colleague to recuse themselves from the Panel.

Expert Reviewer Recusal Policy: Please note that expert reviewers will be asked to recuse themselves completely from the Evaluation Panel if they are the head of the organization that submits an application that advances to the Evaluation Panel stage or are on the project team of a submitted application that advances to the Evaluation Panel stage. If an expert reviewer is neither the head of the organization nor on the project team, we only require that the reviewer recuse themselves from evaluating their organization’s application. We also ask that reviewers recuse themselves from evaluating the applications of any organizations for which family members or close friends serve as employees, investors, advisors or board members. This policy it is intended to ensure fairness.

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There is flexibility in regards to your grant period and project timeline based on your needs and your approach. The majority of projects are five years and over, though it is acceptable to plan for 3-5 years as well. There is a specific reference to a five year grant period in the “Solution Overview” of the application. For the purposes of describing your impact, we do encourage you to think five years ahead.