Application Deadline: November 2 2023 14:00 (EDT)
About
Through the Echoing Green Fellowship, we find innovators, mobilizers, community organizers, and social justice leaders working on a plan to make the world better in a big way. Then we help them grow their impact by connecting them with the tools, resources, and communities they need to bring their ideas to life. Through Fellowships and other innovative leadership initiatives, Echoing Green spots emerging leaders and invests deeply in their success to accelerate their impact. We provide seed funding and leadership development to a new class of Fellows every year and welcome them into a lifelong community of leaders.
Eligibility Requirements
Applicant Eligibility:
- Will you be 18 years or older by the time you begin the Fellowship?
- Echoing Green Fellowship applicants must be 18 years or older by June 1, 2024.
- Are you able to communicate proficiently in English?
- To be eligible for the Fellowship and fully participate in programming and support offerings, you must be able to communicate in English proficiently. Support throughout the Echoing Green Fellowship is offered in English.
- Are you an original founder or a leading member of your proposed organization’s original founding team?
- We use the term “original founder” to describe people who launched or are launching an organization that is their original idea. You cannot have assumed a leadership position within the organization after its founding. To be eligible, you must be a leader with decision-making power within the organization and be either 1) a sole founder or 2) a leading founder on a team of people who created the organization.
- Are you the primary decision maker for your organization?
- To be eligible for an Echoing Green Fellowship, applicants must be the primary decision maker and have the ultimate authority over your organization’s growth and strategic vision.
- Will you be able to work full time on your proposed organization throughout the 18-month Fellowship?
- If selected for an Echoing Green Fellowship, you may hold other professional responsibilities, but you must work full time, defined here as 40 hours a week, on the work outlined in your Fellowship application, and it must remain as your main professional priority.
Organization Eligibility
- Does your proposed organization have a parent organization?
- Organizations that are independent but have fiscal sponsors are eligible for the Echoing Green Fellowship as long as the fiscal sponsor has no authority over the organization’s work and decision making.
- Does your proposed organization operate independently and autonomously from your parent organization?
- To be eligible for an Echoing Green Fellowship, you must be able to make and act on organizational decisions of your own choosing. If other organizations or entities manage or hold decision-making authority for your proposed organization, you may not be eligible. Organizations that are independent but have fiscal sponsors may be eligible as long as the fiscal sponsor has no authority over the organization’s work and decision making.
- In your personal assessment, would you describe your organization or idea in the “early stage” of its development and in need of financial and non-financial resources to become sustainable?
- Echoing Green seeks applicants in need of funding to initiate or scale their organizations. We generally describe early-stage organizations or ideas as those that 1) have operated with full-time staff for less than five years or 2) still need resources to grow and sustain their operations. Organizations that already have all of the following in place *may* not qualify as early-stage enough for the Echoing Green Fellowship: a well-defined program model; an initial strategic plan; basic organizational infrastructure (like a bank account, payroll, job descriptions, etc.); a staffing plan; initial funding sources; and a board of directors that meets regularly to manage organizational governance. If you do not have all of these elements in place yet, you may still be in your startup phase and eligible to apply for an Echoing Green Fellowship.
- Does your organization use lobbying to further its mission or goals?
- Per the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Echoing Green cannot distribute funds to organizations whose primary purpose is lobbying. Lobbying is defined as activities that seek to support specific political candidates, specific political parties, or urge action on specific legislative bills. Issue-area advocacy, defined as the attempt to cause political action using methods such as civic education and public campaigns, is not considered lobbying. For more details, please reference the IRS definition here: irs.gov/charities-non-profits/lobbying.
- Does your organization promote or recruit for a specific religious faith?
- To be eligible for an Echoing Green Fellowship, the organization cannot engage in recruitment, promotion, or conversion for a specific religious faith to your constituency. If your organization’s work has a spiritual element or works with existing faith communities but does not promote or recruit on behalf of that faith, you may be eligible.
- Have you or any members of the organization’s founding or leadership team previously received an Echoing Green Fellowship?
- For you and your organization to be eligible for an Echoing Green Fellowship, no founding team members and no people in a leadership position can be an Echoing Green Fellow.
Application Cycles & Timing
Application Cycles:
Applicants who are selected for the Fellowship will be notified in June/July 2024. Sign up to be notified about information and timing of new application cycles.
Submission Policies
Policies for all applicants:
- Submit your final application using Echoing Green’s application website. Do not mail, fax, or email your application – Echoing Green will not accept it if it is not submitted through the application website. No exceptions!
- Any extraneous materials submitted will be discarded immediately and not reviewed. We will not accept or review any other documents (e.g., letters of inquiry, business plans) in lieu of the online application.
- Your application must be received before 2:00 PM (14:00) ET on the date of the deadline. Without exception, if Echoing Green receives your application after this deadline, regardless of technical difficulty, your submission will not be considered for the Fellowship application cycle.
- Applications cannot be revised once they have been submitted. Once you submit on Echoing Green’s application website, no changes can be made, even if time remains before the final deadline.
- You may only submit one application. Any applicant who submits multiple applications for the same project or single applications for different projects in the same application cycle will be automatically disqualified from consideration.
