Narrow The Gap - Crossed paths for social impacts

Dear friends and supporters, 

I hope you are doing well and safe. 

I'm excited to provide you some important updates from Narrow The Gap. Two weeks ago, we officially kicked off the program this year calling for concept ideas from local communities under the theme of 5 chosen U.N Sustainable Development Goals including No Poverty, Good Health & Well-being, Quality Education, Clean Water & Sanitation, Climate Action. We have already so far received a total of 65 concept notes from the community and nonprofit organizations which emphasize the urgent needs of local communities to address these important issues in Vietnam.  

At Narrow The Gap, our biggest goal is always how best we can mobilize local community resources including skills, in-kind and financial resources to support grassroots nonprofits for their own community-led development. That's why we are so happy to receive tremendous support from many people who agreed to volunteer as our Grant Allocation Committee (GAC) members, GAC is an independent review panel created to help us select the qualified projects to receive funding from Narrow The Gap, a total of 9 projects will be selected in the end (3 projects receive 150 million VND / project, and 6 projects receive 75 million VND/ project). Our GAC consists of 20 people who come from very diverse sectors such as corporates, academia, NGOs and field experts in the community. 

Also this year, we decided to reach out and work with our local contact points in Mekong Delta and central highland areas including Caritas Dalat based in Dalat province, CHARITABLE GROUPS OF THE CLANS VUS – VOS IN SOUTH VIETNAM based in Tay Nguyen and Ca Mau provinces, these local contact points helped us outreach to local communities to inform them about Narrow The Gap, as we are aware that it could be quite challenging for many grassroots initiatives outside the big cities like Saigon, Can Tho to access to this kind of funding opportunity without the right awareness and information. We think this could be the reason why we have received many concept ideas in such a short period of time thanks to this new approach. 

Furthermore, another positive news is that despite the Covid-19 situation, the number of corporate sponsors for Narrow The Gap this year has actually been increased from three to five including companies like KPMG Vietnam, vsource, Premier Oil, Shire Oak and Essential Flavours. It’s truly so wonderful to see many companies, important donors, community members such as yourself, have joined hands together to support community initiatives addressing local issues. And we are honored to play a facilitation role to make this happen. 

And in our next report in September, you should know more about the 9 grantees selected to receive the funding from the program. Please stay in touch and continue to support Narrow The Gap by helping to spread a word to your friends, your network so more people will know about Narrow The Gap and the amazing works local nonprofits are doing in Vietnam! 

Please stay safe!

Warmest Regards,

Vo Ngoc Tuyen (Kelly), Head of Philanthropy Services