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ABOUT THE INCLUSION YOUTH FUND
Youth-led civil society organizations mobilize and connect vast networks of young change-makers worldwide. These agile and smaller groups are based at the heart of communities, closest to the problems and able to design locally guided solutions.
Young people and their networks are vital to help deliver the transformation and mobilization needed to address climate change in our lifetimes. In the 2024 State of Youth Civil Society report we introduced the 10 Principles for Funding Youth Movements, a milestone in our collective efforts to ensure sustainable support for youth-led organising. But the development landscape has shifted dramatically since then. The dismantling of USAID has led to the termination of nearly 5,800 multi-year aid awards, a 92% cut in its global programming portfolio. The UK is scaling back its ODA commitment to just 0.3% of GNI by 2027, and the Netherlands plans to reduce its development assistance by €2.4 billion over the same period. These funding reductions disproportionately affect the very sectors that youth civil society depends on – gender equality, education, climate justice, and civic participation. The Youth Civil Society 2025 report is about reimagining resilience. We have explored how youth civil society can flourish outside traditional funding systems.
With this context, we want to create the opportunity for youth-led organizations, networks and movements to access small-scale, flexible funding to support their efforts to tackle the issues of Climate Change and Civic Engagement. The Inclusion Youth Fund (opens in a new tab) will specifically support youth-led initiatives advancing climate resilience and civic participation that also build supportive ecosystems – transforming community mindsets, addressing systemic inequities, and strengthening young people’s skills and tools to drive inclusion within their area of work.
With our aim to amplify the work being done by young people to tackle the issue, we are looking to provide funding to support a huge diversity of actions, strengthen young climate enthusiasts’ skills, and improve the collaboration between youth organizations in India to learn from each other and elevate their actions and voice to global platforms to catalyze government commitments and change. The Youth Fund will be available only in Karnataka and Odisha currently.
Small flexible grants of between INR 1 lakhs to 5 lakhs will be made available to young people to lead specific campaigning / implementation activities in their communities to strengthen and inspire collective action.
OUR APPROACH TO SAFEGUARDING
Restless Development considers the welfare and protection of children, young people and vulnerable adults to be an organizational imperative with primacy over the success of programmes or strategic objectives. We recognise that safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and we expect all of our staff, volunteers and partners to ensure we protect the communities in which we operate from harm and abide by our Safeguarding Policy.
Restless Development is a values-led organization. As well as considering skills and experience, we are looking for people who demonstrate the personal qualities and competencies consistent with our Values. To learn more about Restless Development’s values please visit this link.
The Youth Fund supports the campaigning and implementation of small scale projects of young people committed to taking action on climate change through collaboration, conversation, awareness, youth engagement or generating public support.
We particularly want to encourage applications that engage a diverse range of young people, including those from underserved communities. We also welcome applications showing collaboration across organizations/networks and links between projects, regions and states.
You should consider applying if your collective/organization is youth led or youth focussed and should have working implementation in any city or multiple cities of Karnataka or Odisha. If your work focuses on climate change, Civic engagement, Gender, Livelihood etc from the Inclusion lens or you have a solution or idea towards the same, please share your application with us. As part of the Inclusion Youth Fund, we will be developing an Inclusion Module, and each of the grantees will be expected to implement the same in their communities with at least 50 young people or more. Please ensure you have access to a community with young people being engaged.
To check your eligibility, and what we can and cannot fund, please see the FAQs document here (opens in a new tab).
Please note: Due to current restrictions in place, all applicants will require a valid FCRA registration and we will be asking for documents during the due diligence process.
Language
We are only able to accept the responses to the application in a written or video format in English, Kannada or Odia language. We understand this limitation might prevent some organizations and networks from applying, we want to address this limitation in the future and create a more inclusive process in multiple languages for this youth-led fund.
Eligible and interested candidates should complete a short and simple application form (opens in a new tab) stating what they want to use the funding for and the impact they intend to have with their activities. Applicants should indicate how much funding they are requesting, with a limit of up to INR 5,00,000. The pilot Youth Fund support would be available for a period of 8 months (May 2026-December 2026) with a possibility of extension.
COMMITMENTS REQUIRED BY YOUTH FUND APPLICANTS
- Are available to contribute properly and fully to the project implementation
- Have access to 50 young people for Inclusion Module implementation
- Have regular access to the internet, and are responsive to requests and deadlines
- Are available to attend Onboarding training & initial Due Diligence process and Exposure visits
- Available to share project progress report in middle of the project implementation and a full detailed project and finance report at the time of final project submission
- Available for sharing and learning sessions that will be organized by Restless Development as and when required
KEY DATES
Interested applicants, who have read this Terms of Reference and are able to meet all of the requirements listed, are invited to complete the online application form.
- Fill the application form (opens in a new tab) by 5th April 2026. Please note we DO NOT accept CVs, resumes or cover letters.
- For any questions about the application process please refer to the FAQ document here (opens in a new tab)or email Poorvi Mehrotra at poorvi@restlessdevelopment.org.