Call for Proposals: Transform Together Fund

This is a call for proposals (CfP) organized by MFC and Cerise within the project Transform Together Fund (TTF): Green and digital transition fund for social finance actors and microentrepreneurs. TTF is an active project running from August 2023 to July 2025. The project is funded by the European Commission under the Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI) strand of the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+).

The TTF is looking to support innovative green or/and digital approaches or solutions that will benefit vulnerable microentrepreneurs groups.

These innovative approaches should be something new in the market where your organization operates, new for a specific target group (even if similar solutions exist, as long as they haven’t been used by this group), or new for your institution. If it’s something new for your institution, they’ll ask for an explanation of how it’s similar to and different from what other social economy players are doing in the market.

The applicant may choose to focus on one of the themes: green or digital in their application (it is not necessary to work on both themes).

Project Focus

They are on a mission to bridge the green and digital gap for vulnerable microentrepreneurs groups such as low income, women, farmers, migrants, and refugees. They lack the knowledge and resources to embrace digital and green solutions. This is where you come in!

Funding Information

Each applicant can apply for a grant ranging from €20,000 to 50,000. With your innovative solutions, they aim to enhance the knowledge and practices of their target groups in the green or digital domain. The program provides up to 90% co-financing for approved projects.

Examples of Activities that can be funded

• Capacity building activities (e.g. trainings) for beneficiaries or applicant organization (if the capacity building activity is for the applicant staff, it must clearly demonstrate how the beneficiary will benefit from knowledge gained by the organization staff).
• Actions that lead to developing and testing new social innovation approaches/solutions related to green and/or digital from which beneficiary will benefit (e.g., their business will introduce new digital/green solutions).
• Developing and testing solutions which will help to reach beneficiaries to  offer already developed educational activities or products which will make them more digital/green.
• Research activities that lead to developing and testing a solution (though research results cannot be the outcome of the project).
• Creating ecosystem (partnerships) that will help beneficiaries apply green or digital practices (i.e. ecosystem to utilize business waste that destroys the environment).
• Activities related to innovative green/digital product development.
• Promoting green/digital microentrepreneurs and their relevant practices.

What’s in it for You?

Beyond grants, they offer a range of opportunities:

• Participation in training and peer exchange programs.
• Access to expert mentoring and capacity-building.
• The chance to positively contribute to reaching up to 10,000 beneficiaries.

Eligible Costs

• Incurred during the project duration.
• Relevant for proposed activities; examples:
  • Staff costs
  • External experts’ costs
  • Software / equipment relevant for project activities
  • Travel costs
  • Rental
  • Subcontracting
  • Banking fees (related to the project activities)

Eligible Applicants

• In order to be eligible, the applicant must:
  • Be a legal entity;
  • Be established in one of the EU countries (including overseas countries and territory) or Norway;
  • Be a social finance actor: microfinance institution (any legal entity providing microfinance), national microfinance association, non-governmental organization or regional network working on financial inclusion.
• Target groups (beneficiaries) which should benefit from the proposed action:
  • Vulnerable microentrepreneurs groups (including farmers): low income, women, migrants/refugees.

For more information, visit Microfinance Centre.