Established to fight indifference to manifestations of discrimination

We want to take an active stand against indifference to discrimination in all shapes and forms. The goal of the Challenge is to make indifference a target of action as well as a subject of public conversation in order to erase it from social life. We believe that indifference poses a serious threat to the safety and wellbeing of many in our societies and is something that can ultimately have serious consequences as we have seen over the course of history. 

Erase Indifference Challenge is a global initiative to find and support innovative projects fighting indifference towards discrimination, especially racism, antisemitism, misogyny, as well as discrimination against migrants and refugees, and LGBTQIA+ people. This is an innovation engine to fuel modern, imaginative and measurable initiatives that will lead to concrete actions and ultimately the demise of indifference, the rise of empathy, and the acceptance and celebration of our differences. 

As its name indicates, it focuses first and foremost on combating indifference to discrimination. This may not be obvious from the very beginning as we are more used to approaching such issues from the perspective of fighting discrimination in a more direct manner. Our competition, however, essentially aims at addressing the issue of indifference to various manifestations of discriminatory behaviors and messages.

We offer grants of up to €30,000 to each of the 3 winning projects that have the greatest potential to have a real impact in the world and affect at least one of the previously mentioned forms of indifference. The winners will also receive tangible, legal and formal support customized to their project and their needs.

On 10th January 2024, the Open Call for applications will commence and applicants from all over the world are invited to participate. We strive to make our competition as accessible and straightforward as possible, therefore we have prepared a simple application process. 

You can find the application form on the EraseIndifference.org website in the section dedicated to the competition. A successful application generates a confirmation email sent to the indicated address.

The Challenge is free to enter. 

We direct our initiative to NGOs, startups, companies, public institutions, religious associations or informal groups (that have the support of an umbrella organization to take over the formal aspects of implementing a project) from all over the world.

However, there are certain groups of entities that we cannot admit into our Challenge. We cannot accept your application if you are: 

● financed by or in any way related to political entities, 

● implementing (or implemented in the past ) activities or projects that stand in opposition to the mission of the Auschwitz Pledge Foundation.

If you have formed an informal group and would like to participate you can do so but with the support of an “umbrella organization”. This needs to be a legal entity, so that we are able to sign a project implementation contract with you. Therefore, you can find an NGO or a company that supports the project formally and leaves the project implementation to you.

The team has to consist of at least three members. We believe that to create a successful project a team is necessary. This means that if you apply as an organization, a company or in partnership, you still have to present at least three team members that would be planning to participate in the project implementation (and cooperation with us).

The application has to be submitted in English. As this is an international challenge, we ask that all participants be able to speak and write in English at least on a communicative level.

The initial stage of the competition involves a preliminary assessment conducted by the Auschwitz Pledge Foundation's dedicated team. Assessors evaluate the applications for credibility and cohesiveness, incorporating both formal assessment and preliminary content-related review. This evaluation process represents the first of two critical phases in determining the projects that advance to the second stage. Only after this comprehensive review will APF’s team identify and forward the top 30 projects to the Challenge Committee for their assessment.

Applications that have passed the APF’s team assessment go through the content-related review and evaluation done by the Challenge Committee, which chooses 10 projects that take part in the second stage of the competition.

During the second stage of the Challenge, finalists take part in workshops sessions focused on many different areas such as – technology, evaluation, Human Rights and Combating Discrimination, fundraising, etc., during which finalists will be able to improve their applications. The second stage of the Challenge ends with the designation of three winners that receive the support and funding from Auschwitz Pledge Foundation. In order to select those three winning projects, representatives of the Auschwitz Pledge Foundation Board and the Challenge Committee evaluate the in-depth version of the application form (created during the second stage of the competition under the supervision of our experts and with their assistance), as well as opinions of the experts.

The Challenge Committee is a body composed of external experts on social enterprises and matters concerning discrimination – especially racism, antisemitism and religious discrimination, misogyny as well as discrimination against migrants and refugees, and LGBTQIA+ people – and additionally experts on ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) and startups. The Committee consists of people from various countries. 

This means that we ask you to incorporate technology as either the main tool of the project or a means of scaling the reach of your idea. You don’t have to have expertise in ICT (although it is most welcome). We can help you with the implementation, but you need to take it into account when planning your project.

In this program we are looking for new ideas targeting indifference. This means that the innovativeness can be relative, e.g. solutions or ICT tools that have been used for different purposes (like mapping of social media users, workshops aimed at empowerment of their participants) can be innovative in the field of combating indifference.

Yes, you can. Team members can choose to participate several years in a row – we do not have any limitations.

No, you cannot. One team may submit one application only.

Yes, you can. The fact that we have 5 pillars of focus (racism, misogyny, antisemitism, anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment and discrimination against migrants and refugees) does not mean that your project cannot tackle any other form or type of discrimination. During the evaluation process, all applications will be treated equally.

Yes, you can apply to the Challenge in a partnership. Your partners, however, should also meet all the earlier mentioned criteria.

The main target group of the project are “bystanders” – people indifferent to acts of aggression or discrimination against others; individuals who witness harmful behavior or situations without intervening