REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS: Trainings on Feminist Digital Security and Holistic Protection (Centering Collective Care and Healing Justice)

Location: Remote Duration: To be implemented between September 2025 – January 2026 Budget: $60,000 - $80,000 CAD Reports to: Director, Accompaniment - Global Programs Application Deadline: August 10, 2025 Reference Number: GMA-202526-01

BACKGROUND

The Equality Fund is transforming the way that resources—and power—flow into the hands of women, girls, and trans people worldwide. Designed by feminists for feminists, it is a model for sustainably resourcing feminist movements everywhere, through global grantmaking, gender-lens investing, policy advocacy, and feminist philanthropy. Launched in 2019, the Equality Fund has committed $100 million and, as of 2025, supports over 1000 organizations working in 100 countries globally.

The Equality Fund’s grantmaking model recognizes that organizations often need support beyond financial resources. In addition to providing flexible multi-year funding, we share additional opportunities for connection, advocacy, amplification, and feminist risk management. We bring organizations together, supporting convenings that build connection and solidarity on issues, themes, and geographies. We listen to organizations and actors from the movement so that we can amplify their work and contribute to sensitizing our audiences to current human rights issues and ways they can contribute to the movement. We co-create spaces with our partners that help strengthen their capacity to sustain and thrive, such as cohort-wide virtual and in-person training.

This offering on Feminist Digital Security and Holistic Protection connects a cohort of Equality Fund grantee partners with expert trainer(s) who will centre feminist approaches to help advance their risk management and improve their preparedness for current and future digital context. The training seeks to help them to meet current challenges and realities as human rights defenders in an increasingly digital world. This opportunity will centre collective care and healing justice as critical approaches to holistic protection for women human rights defenders. Applying Mama Cash’s definition, with ‘holistic protection’ we mean everything that helps activists do their work in a safe and healthy way. This includes digital and physical security, as well as care of their mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health and wellbeing, both at the personal and collective levels.

Digitization and Human Rights Defenders Technology presents various challenges to the protection of human rights, such as the lack of adequate avenues to verify the authenticity of information shared, violation of the right to privacy, respect to copyright issues, and the right to anonymity, among others. Within shrinking civic spaces, human rights defenders need to be more vigilant in securing their digital and personal environments. Various governments have increased clampdowns on feminist, human rights organizations, including intimidation and arrests, closure of their offices and harassment of social media users. Malicious attacks at both organisational and personal levels are still present among many human rights defenders. The increasing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) also presents new opportunities - and challenges - as this rapidly evolving technology is used to both improve administrative and institutional practices and create harmful content that hinders personal safety. While facing active attacks and addressing these challenges, human rights defenders are strained in time and capacity to centre their care and well-being.

SCOPE OF WORK

The Equality Fund is seeking a consultancy team to provide training to support grantee partners in advancing their digital security and holistic protection through feminist values and praxis.

The training will bring forward good practices for digital security and holistic protection, centering collective care and healing justice as an underpinning value and core activity of the sessions. The facilitator will support participants to explore key topics and themes. In addition to those co-developed through engagement with grantee partners, these may include: The interconnection between psychosocial and emotional wellbeing, physical security and digital security; Individual and collective healing and recovery as key elements in the sustainability of the defense of human rights. Visibility and transparency versus safety; Digital protection plans and processes, including but not limited to: Best practices for institutional and personal online safety; Financial cybersecurity and fraud prevention Supporting organizations to do threat modeling/security planning; Confronting digital emergencies and/or Online Gender-Based Violence; Creating safer digital spaces for feminist activists: digital security and digital rights advocacy.

The training will assess grantee partners’ current capacity to determine relevant content and approaches. This assessment will serve as a baseline for determining existing knowledge and skills, and will be useful in helping to measure capacity built over the duration of the training and beyond. The training will then provide grantee partners with support to develop a digital security strategy, analyzing any gaps in their approaches, and helping to set up activities and actions that will help improve systems and strengthen organizations for their future work. Throughout the training, the Consultant will make recommendations to participants to strengthen digital security strategies. At the end of the training, the Consultant will share recommendations with the Equality Fund (and other donors) to help improve responses and sustainable protections.

Among other areas determined by participatory approaches, the training will consist of: A minimum of twelve (6 sessions per track) training sessions designed for grantee partners and other stakeholders (as appropriate), developed through a participatory design process that includes movement actors and training participants; Two parallel tracks to support organizations that have minimal experience, and another stream for organizations that may be more experienced in related themes. The training will be informed by analytical data gathered by the Consultant to determine information to be shared in each track. A virtual module, to be delivered online through a recognised, accessible, and secure platform; Supporting tools and information (written), both developed through the course of the training; Individual organizational coaching to follow (or run concurrently with) the training sessions.

The training will be delivered to a collective of partners facing various security risks, and therefore must be developed and implemented with the highest levels of protection for the identities and information of the participants. The successful Consultant must therefore agree to certain security protections, as outlined in their contract agreement.

DELIVERABLES

Work Plan: Develop a detailed work plan based on this RFP and the inception meeting(s) with the Equality Fund and participating grantee partners, including specific tasks and timelines for the activities to be conducted in the framework of this consultancy. Training Sessions: In close coordination with the Equality Fund and partners, design and conduct a minimum of six training sessions over the course of two months on digital and holistic security, tailored to the needs and context of women and gender expansive human rights defenders from diverse languages (English, French, Spanish, Russian), diverse geographies, and diverse organizational size and scope. The training cohort will not exceed 50 participants per session; the final session design may be adjusted to accommodate the registered cohort size. Individual Coaching: Offer individual coaching sessions to support grantee partners in developing or refining the foundation of their digital and holistic strategy. Summary Report: Upon completion of the sessions and individual coaching, provide a summary report of the work completed, analysis on the progress of the participants, and recommendations for further potential capacity development needs.

DURATION

This consultancy is expected to be completed by January, 2026. Upon contract award, a detailed work plan will be developed by the consultant team based on discussions with the Equality Fund.

SELECTION CRITERIA

Relevant tertiary qualification, for example, information technology, development studies, social sciences, or women’s/gender studies. Track record of successful consultancies that have focused on women’s rights, gender justice in particular, and experience in digital security and in healing justice and collective care, preferably in the Global South. Knowledge of philanthropy and donor spaces is an asset. Experience facilitating virtual participatory meetings with activists and civil society groups. Experience developing participatory training approaches. Strong understanding of women’s and LGBTQI movements and experience working with grassroots/diverse organizations — Strongly Preferred. Proven written and oral communication skills in English. Bilingual Consultants (French, Spanish, Russian) are encouraged to apply. Highly efficient and flexible approach to work, with ease in collaborating with others. Highly organized, analytical, adaptive, and responsive to feedback and changes in direction when needed. Demonstrated commitment to intersectional feminist approaches and commitment to gender, racial, economic, and global justice. Ability to work with limited supervision, as part of a small team, and independently.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

Applications will be assessed on the above criteria in addition to: Compliance with these terms of reference. Experience supporting feminist organisations or rights-based organisations Ability to demonstrate an excellent understanding of the tasks involved. Realistic in defining the scope of work and approach. Proven expertise in conducting similar work. Applicants who have less expertise in holistic protection, healing justice, and collective care should indicate if they are willing to work in partnership with a co-facilitator selected by the Equality Fund. Acceptance of terms and conditions.

HOW TO APPLY

Interested candidates should submit their resume (including all team members), cover letter, and proposal by August 10, 2025.

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Request for Proposal: Feminist Digital Security and Holistic Protection Training