Biodiv'Sport Grant Programme 2026: Up to €5,000 From Play for Nature for Conservation NGOs Using Sporting Events to Protect an IUCN Red List Species — Applications Close 16 August 2026

Biodiv’Sport Grant Programme 2026: Up to €5,000 From Play for Nature for Conservation NGOs Using Sporting Events to Protect an IUCN Red List Species — Applications Close 16 August 2026

Most biodiversity funding assumes the hard part is the science. Biodiv’Sport assumes the hard part is the people. The fund, run by the French endowment fund Play for Nature, pays conservation organisations to organise sporting events — football tournaments, wrestling matches, marathons, traditional games — as the mechanism for reaching the communities who live alongside a threatened species and whose decisions determine whether it survives.

The grants are small. A first application is capped at €5,000. But the money goes where small money works hardest: pitch rental, referees, jerseys, medical cover, transport, prizes, and the awareness activities wrapped around a match that several hundred local people actually turn up to. Past recipients have run football tournaments for bonobos in the Democratic Republic of Congo, martial arts and race walking days in Côte d’Ivoire, a spectacled bear football cup in Peru, traditional wrestling in a Cameroonian marine park, and sports walks alongside a 1,000-seedling reforestation campaign in Benin.

The 2026 edition runs from 15 July to 16 August 2026, with decisions in late October 2026 and funded projects starting in 2027. This guide covers what the fund pays for, the eligibility rules that disqualify most applicants before a reviewer reads a word, the documents you need ready, and how to build a project that survives the fund’s stated priorities.

Key Details at a Glance

What Biodiv’Sport Actually Funds

Play for Nature describes Biodiv’Sport as technical and financial support for programmes “using sport as a vector to raise awareness among populations and protect biodiversity.” The fund exists to channel corporate and donor money — Play for Nature works with companies that want their giving attached to a specific conservation project — into grassroots organisations that would otherwise never appear on an international funder’s radar.

The shape of a funded project is consistent across the portfolio. An organisation with an existing conservation mandate identifies a threatened species in a defined area. It organises a sporting event that the surrounding community already cares about. The event becomes the venue for conservation messaging: the species, the threats, what local people can do. Money covers the logistics of running the event and the awareness activities built around it.

Some concrete examples from Play for Nature’s own record of supported programmes:

• Mbou-Mon-Tour (DRC) — football, Nzango, and Silikoti competitions to build community commitment to protecting bonobos and their habitat, with funding for equipment, organisation, and teams.
• YVEO (Côte d’Ivoire) — the Journées du Tong-il Sport Conservation, combining martial arts and race walking around biodiversity protection and the role of sport in conserving natural resources.
• La Copa del Oso – Tu Tierra (Peru) — a football tournament raising awareness of spectacled bear protection.
• ACB Côte d’Ivoire — a football tournament and marathon around the Tanoé-Ehy Marsh Forest Voluntary Nature Reserve, with the grant covering logistical and medical costs.
• Tube Awù (Cameroon) — traditional wrestling and mixed football tournaments introducing young people to the emblematic species of the Manyange na Elombo Campo marine national park.
• ABOYERD — the Ngouroumoutou project, pairing traditional dance with pangolin conservation awareness and reforestation.
• Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary (Sierra Leone) — football tournaments, cultural events, teacher training, and workshops with local authorities around the western chimpanzee.

Note what these have in common. Each has a named species, a named place, an event format with local pull, and a community that the organisation already works with. None is a generic “environmental education” proposal.

The 2026 Edition Is Narrower Than Usual

This is the single most important thing to understand before you write anything. Play for Nature states explicitly that the 2026 edition “exclusively funds projects combining sport and biodiversity conservation,” and that “projects focused solely on research or conservation without a link to sport are not eligible this year.”

Play for Nature runs other programmes — Biodiv’Monde and Biodiv’Educ — but the 2026 call on the table is the Biodiv’Sport one, and it is sport-linked or nothing. If your project is a camera-trap survey, a habitat restoration plan, a species census, or a school curriculum with no sporting component, it will not pass screening no matter how strong the conservation case is.

The reverse also disqualifies you. The fund does not support “sport projects with no clear conservation and/or biodiversity awareness objective.” A charity fun run that donates proceeds to nature is not what this is. The sport has to be the awareness mechanism, and the conservation outcome has to be specific and stated.

Eligibility: Seven Gates You Must Pass

Play for Nature lists eligibility as a set of conditions your organisation and project must meet in full. Every one is a hard filter.

1. You are a civil society organisation (CSO) whose primary mission is biodiversity conservation, with a track record of actions demonstrating that commitment. Play for Nature says plainly that generalist organisations and exclusively sport-focused organisations are not eligible. A sports club cannot apply; a conservation NGO that runs sports events can.
2. Your organisation has been legally established for at least three years. Newly registered groups are out, regardless of the quality of the idea. If you are close to the line, count from your legal registration date, not from when you started working.
3. Your project involves at least one threatened species on the IUCN Red List, with Vulnerable, Endangered, or Critically Endangered status. Near Threatened and Least Concern do not qualify. Check the current listing for your species before you write — Red List statuses are reassessed and yours may have moved.
4. The amount requested is no more than 50% of your organisation’s annual budget. This means an organisation with an annual budget under €10,000 cannot request the full €5,000. It is a proportionality test: the fund does not want to become an organisation’s dominant income source.
5. The amount requested is at least 10% of the total project cost. The mirror-image test. A €5,000 grant against a €200,000 project would fail — Play for Nature wants its contribution to be a meaningful share of what it is funding, not a rounding error in a large programme.
6. The project does not transfer funds or re-grant to another organisation. You must implement directly. Pass-through structures are ineligible.
7. The project is not located in an active armed conflict zone.

There are also explicit exclusions on what the fund will not pay for: sport projects without a conservation or biodiversity awareness objective, overhead costs only, and wildlife rescue or care centres without a reintroduction objective. That last one matters — a sanctuary can be eligible if there is a genuine release pathway, but permanent-care facilities on their own are not the target.

The Two Budget Ratios, Worked Through

The 50%-and-10% rules trip up more applicants than anything else, so it is worth doing the arithmetic before you commit to a project design.

Suppose your organisation’s annual budget is €40,000. The 50% ceiling gives you headroom of €20,000, comfortably above the €5,000 Starter cap, so that test is satisfied automatically. Now the 10% floor: your grant request must be at least a tenth of total project cost. If you ask for the full €5,000, your total project budget cannot exceed €50,000.

Now suppose your annual budget is €8,000. Fifty percent is €4,000, so €4,000 is your effective maximum request, not €5,000. And with a €4,000 request, your project’s total cost must be €40,000 or less.

Build your project budget around these constraints from the start. A proposal that fails the ratio test is not a proposal a reviewer negotiates down — it is a proposal that does not meet stated eligibility.

Required Documents

Play for Nature states that all mandatory documents must be provided. Missing paperwork is a rejection reason in its own right, and the window is only about four weeks, so assemble these before you start drafting:

• Activity report — your organisation’s recent record of work. This is where your conservation track record is evidenced.
• Latest approved financial statements — approved, not draft.
• Annual budget — needed for the 50% ratio check.
• Project budget — needed for the 10% ratio check.
• Project leader’s CV — the person actually running this, not necessarily your director.
• Bank details — in your organisation’s name.
• Organisation logo — Play for Nature publicises its supported programmes and will need it.

Applications are submitted through Play for Nature’s online portal, linked from the Submit a proposal page. The fund also publishes a set of support resources alongside the call: grant guidelines, a Biodiv’Sport guide, the application form, an informational webinar, a “what makes a project strong” note, a project self-check, and an FAQ. Read the self-check first — it is the cheapest way to find out whether you should spend the next three weeks on this.

Timeline

One caution on status. At the time this guide was written, Play for Nature’s Submit a proposal page still carried the line “The call for applications is not yet open” above the 15 July – 16 August 2026 dates. That text appears not to have been refreshed when the window opened. Treat the dates as the operative information, confirm the portal is live before you finalise anything, and email [email protected] if the form is not accepting submissions. Do not assume you have extra time because a page has not been updated.

Also note the gap between decision and delivery: awards are announced in late October 2026 but projects start in 2027. Design your event calendar accordingly — a tournament you need to hold in November 2026 is not what this call funds.

What Makes a Project Strong Here

Play for Nature says it approaches funding as a long-term partnership, and it names what it rewards: regular submission of activity reports, smooth communication with its team, and documented conservation impact. Organisations that deliver on all three can move from Starter to Consolidation (renewed grant) and then Development (increased grant, structural partnership).

That framing tells you what a first application is really being judged on: whether you look like an organisation that will still be reporting reliably in two years. Practical implications:

Name the species and the number. “Protecting local wildlife” is weak. “The western chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus), Critically Endangered, with an estimated population of X in the Y forest block adjacent to our three partner villages” is what the fund’s own project descriptions look like.

Pick a sport your community already plays. The portfolio is full of local formats — Nzango, Silikoti, traditional wrestling, village football — not imported ones. An event people already want to attend does the mobilisation work for you.

Say who is in the room. Attendance numbers, age ranges, which villages, whether teachers and local authorities are involved. Tacugama’s project bundled teacher training and workshops with local authorities into the sporting programme; that is the kind of layering that converts an event into durable engagement.

Make the awareness component concrete. What is said, by whom, at what point in the event, and with what materials? A tournament with a conservation banner is not an awareness programme.

Show what changes. Documented conservation impact is the fund’s stated renewal criterion, so describe how you will evidence it — surveys before and after, reduced snaring reports, community agreements signed, seedlings planted and survival-checked, patrol participation.

Budget honestly and locally. Small grants get scrutinised line by line. Referees, pitch preparation, medical cover, transport, equipment, and printing are all normal and defensible. Overhead alone is not fundable.

Common Mistakes

• Applying as a sports organisation. Explicitly excluded. If sport is your core business, the route in is as an implementing partner of a conservation NGO — and even then, the applicant must be the conservation body, and it cannot re-grant to you.
• Applying with a species that is not Red-Listed at VU or above. Verify the current status; do not rely on a figure from an old report.
• Failing a budget ratio. Check both tests with real numbers before you design the project.
• Submitting a research project with a sport label attached. The 2026 edition is explicit that research-only work is out, and a token sports day will not disguise it.
• Being under three years old. There is no discretion stated here.
• Leaving out a document. Approved financial statements in particular are the one applicants most often cannot produce quickly. Start now.
• Proposing work in an active conflict zone. Stated exclusion, regardless of need.
• Asking for the full €5,000 reflexively. If your organisation is small, the 50% rule may cap you lower — and a request that violates the rule reads as carelessness.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a country restriction? Play for Nature does not publish a geographic restriction, and its supported programmes span Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The only stated location exclusion is active armed conflict zones.

Can I apply if I received a Biodiv’Sport grant before? Yes — that is how the partnership pathway works. Prior grantees who reported well and demonstrated impact move toward Consolidation and Development levels, which carry renewed or increased funding. The €5,000 cap applies to first applications.

Is €5,000 the guaranteed award? No. It is the maximum a first application may be designed around. Play for Nature’s language is that projects “must be designed around a maximum grant of 5,000 €” — so treat it as a ceiling, and build a project that is genuinely deliverable at or below it.

Can the grant cover staff salaries? Not published in detail. What is published is that overhead costs alone are not funded. Project-specific personnel costs directly tied to delivering the event and awareness work are worth raising with the fund before submission if they are a large share of your budget.

What language should I apply in? Play for Nature is a French organisation and publishes the call in both French and English. The site does not state a language requirement for submissions. Ask at [email protected] if this affects you.

When would the money arrive? Not published. Awards are announced in late October 2026 for projects starting in 2027, so plan cash flow around a start no earlier than the new year.

Next Steps

If your organisation clears the three-year and conservation-mission tests, the sequence is straightforward and the window is short.

1. Confirm your target species’ current IUCN Red List status is Vulnerable, Endangered, or Critically Endangered.
2. Run both budget ratios against your actual annual budget and a draft project cost.
3. Pull the seven required documents into one folder — the approved financial statements are the long pole.
4. Read the grant guidelines, the Biodiv’Sport guide, and the project self-check on Play for Nature’s Submit a proposal page, and watch the informational webinar if it is still posted.
5. Draft the project around one species, one place, one sporting format, and a measurable awareness outcome.
6. Submit through the online portal well before 16 August 2026, and email [email protected] with anything the guidelines do not answer.

Official Links

• Call details and application access: Play for Nature — Submit a proposal
• Programme background and past supported projects: Play for Nature — Biodiv’Sport
• Questions about the call: [email protected]
• General contact: [email protected]

Details in this guide are drawn from Play for Nature’s own published pages. Amounts, dates, and eligibility rules can change; verify against the official pages before you submit.