Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund (AEIF) 2025 | PDS 001 FY2025

Opportunity Information: Apply for PDS 001 FY2025

The Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund (AEIF) 2025 is a competitive grant opportunity announced by the U.S. Mission to Ethiopia for alumni of U.S. government-funded or U.S. government-sponsored exchange programs. The fund is meant to help past exchange participants build on the skills, networks, and experience they gained during their programs and turn that learning into practical, alumni-led projects that respond to real community challenges. AEIF has been running globally since 2011 and has supported nearly 500 projects worldwide, which signals that this is part of a long-standing effort to keep alumni engaged well beyond the exchange itself.

For the 2025 cycle, the core focus is on projects that promote sustainable development and mutual prosperity by strengthening partnerships and mutual understanding. In practical terms, proposals need to clearly show how the project will deepen collaboration, trust, and shared purpose among people and institutions, rather than functioning as a standalone activity with limited connection-building. The opportunity explicitly welcomes ideas where alumni take the lead in convening other alumni with similar backgrounds or program tracks, building collaborative relationships through shared experiences and common goals. It also encourages teams to draw on diverse professional expertise to tackle community problems and bridge divides across sectors, such as public, private, civil society, and academia. Another priority area is structured dialogue among alumni to identify shared objectives and translate them into actionable strategies that generate social impact and support community development. Importantly, proposals that do not squarely address the stated theme and objectives will be considered ineligible.

Eligibility is tightly defined around alumni leadership. Applicants must be alumni of U.S. government-funded or sponsored exchanges or programs (for example, those connected to U.S. Department of State exchange pathways). Projects must be proposed and managed by teams that include at least two alumni, and teams can include alumni from different programs and even different countries. While U.S. citizen alumni are allowed to participate as team members, they are not allowed to submit proposals as applicants. Applications must be submitted by individual alumni or alumni associations of U.S. government alumni; other organizations cannot apply on their own. That said, alumni teams are allowed to partner with external entities such as nonprofit organizations, NGOs, think tanks, and academic institutions to help implement activities, and the grant award can be issued either to an individual alum or to a partner organization, depending on what makes sense for project delivery and management.

All funded activities must take place outside the United States and its territories, so proposals need to be designed for implementation in the local or regional context rather than involving U.S.-based programming. The award is structured as a grant under a discretionary funding opportunity. For this Ethiopia-posted competition, the maximum award amount (ceiling) is USD 35,000, and the listing indicates an expectation of one award. The opportunity number is PDS 001 FY2025, and it falls under CFDA 19.022. The application deadline listed is January 25, 2025, and the opportunity was created on November 22, 2024.

Overall, AEIF 2025 is best understood as seed funding for alumni-driven, partnership-centered projects that turn exchange experience into measurable community benefit. A strong application will typically make the alumni leadership and collaboration model unmistakable, show how the project builds durable networks and mutual understanding, and present a realistic plan for implementing activities outside the United States within the available budget ceiling.

• The U.S. Mission to Ethiopia in the other sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund (AEIF) 2025" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 19.022.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2024-11-22.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-01-25. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $35,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others.

Apply for PDS 001 FY2025

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: