Protect lemurs. Empower women. Further science.

Background

Lemur Love is a US-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation that conducts scientific research and partners with Malagasy women to build capacity and promote biodiversity conservation. Lemur Love was founded in 2012 with a focus to support communities and conservation around the Tsminanampesote National Park (southwest Madagascar). In the years since, the organization has mobilised more than USD$150,000 in funding from small grants, donations and merchandise sales, to support a range of work both in the southwestern part of the Madagascar and for national issues like increasing the visibility of Malagasy women in science and to combat the illegal wildlife trade of pet lemurs. 
At the local level, Lemur Love’s activities have ensured the ongoing collection of one of the longest-running field datasets on ring-tailed lemurs in the spiny forest (important for their conservation in the wild!) and have provided small-scale and finite assistance, including training, to community associations in the village of Efoetse (a 3,000-person village close to the National Park). At the national scale, Lemur Love supported the first nationwide outreach campaigns to combat illegal pet lemur ownership, have advocated for inclusion of Malagasy researchers in international conferences, and in 2019, co-organised the first national conference on women in science together with local partners (Ikala STEM). Lemur Love is supported in-country by a Program Director.

Lemur Love COVID-19 Response

In May 2020, the Lemur Love Board approved a fundraising effort to support emergency small grants to mitigate against negative impacts of COVID-19. In general, it was agreed that fundraising could commence to support activities in three broad areas: 

1. Small grants given to associations and communities in southwest Madagascar through our existing network of partnerships;
   
2. Support for monitoring the lemurs that we study, and their habitat, in absence of our research presence; and
3. Writing fellowships to support Malagasy conservationists. 
   

A light-touch tracking system was put in place, including risk management protocols to limit the risk of misused funds while maximising the flexibility of our support.

Grant-giving Principles: Lemur Love COVID Response

Lemur Love will be giving a mixture of proactive and reactive grants. Proactive grant giving will be done through the organisation’s existing network, and through organisations with whom Lemur Love has a prior history of providing small grants or partnership (areas 1 and 2 of the 3 listed above). Reactive grants will be done through open calls for proposals (for area 3 of the funding areas listed above). For both proactive and reactive funding, the following principles apply:

• Funding should be aligned with Lemur Love’s mission of protecting lemurs, empowering women, and furthering science.
• All funding will be given to high-quality and high-impact projects, focusing particularly on areas in southwest Madagascar where other institutions are not present.
• Grantees are expected to demonstrate ownership of and commitment to ensuring appropriate and high-impact use of funds.
• All entities and organisations funded by Lemur Love should have the correct safeguarding policies and procedures in place and should abide by all local laws.
• Lemur Love will endeavor to support its grantees in non-financial ways as much as possible (e.g. through publicity, site visits when possible, access to training).

Proactive funding: Proactive funding, in the form of small grants, will be given to support institutions and communities in the southwest of Madagascar where Lemur Love has a history of working. In many cases, they will be continuations of funding given in previous years or funding activities that have previously been supported (e.g. support to the local school, supporting the local Women’s Association). In other cases, the purpose of the funding might not be typical to Lemur Love’s usual programming (e.g. provision of small grants to families suffering from food shortages, distributed through the local village government or women’s association), but is linked to our core organisational goals of supporting the local community so as to reduce negative impacts on the local environment. It has been agreed that proactive funding will be given only in small tranches of USD$400 at a time, and only through trusted partners with whom we have worked with a light touch reporting mechanism in place to confirm appropriate expenditure. In this way, the funding can be sent rapidly and be used as appropriate on-the-ground but can also be easily capped, should any individual entity no longer be a preferred grant partner to Lemur Love. We expect to incur a small amount of administration costs in the management of these small grants (e.g. bank fees, transport fees, etc.), but these will be a small portion of the overall expenditure. 
Reactive funding: A call for proposals will be launched to select recipients of fellowships and stipends for Malagasy researchers. These fellowships/stipends will last no more than six months in length, and are anticipated to range from USD$400 to USD$750 per person. They are open to all Malagasy researchers, scientists, and conservationists living in Madagascar though women and early-career professionals are especially encouraged to apply. The call for proposals will be posted on the Lemur Love website as soon as funding is secured. Recipients will be asked to do a mid-term email check-in and submit a final report.

Date approved by the Lemur Love Board: May 3rd 2020.