Free Rivers Fund Regular Grant 2025–2026: Funding for River Protection and Anti-Dam Activism

The Free Rivers Fund (FRF) is now accepting purposes for its 2025–2026 Regular Grant, providing monetary help for activists and conservation teams working to guard free-flowing rivers. The grant is designed for people, grassroots organisations, and group teams dedicated to defending rivers from dams, hydropower improvement, and different threats that disrupt pure river ecosystems.

Whether you’re a longtime initiative or a brand new group simply starting your work, the Free Rivers Fund encourages you to apply in case your undertaking contributes to preserving rivers wild, wholesome, and unrestricted.

What the Grant Supports

The FRF funds tasks with a transparent intention of preserving or restoring a river’s free-flowing state. Eligible actions embrace:

• Actions that take away or problem buildings stopping pure water circulation
• Efforts to cease new dams, hydropower vegetation, or comparable developments
• Direct motion, advocacy, and grassroots mobilisation
• Legal prices and marketing campaign bills
• Research gear wanted for river safety work
• Photography, movie, or artwork tasks supporting anti-dam activism
• Travel and documentation prices instantly tied to river safety

Past grants have supported authorized charges, protest actions, subject analysis gear, consciousness campaigns, and inventive tasks that promote river conservation.

What the Grant Does Not Fund

The Free Rivers Fund doesn’t help:

• General clean-up actions
• Purely tutorial analysis tasks
• Renaturalisation or reforestation unrelated to stopping dams or restoring river circulation
• Any work in a roundabout way related to sustaining or reinstating a river’s free-flowing situation

Who Can Apply?

Anyone with a river to guard and a plan to take significant motion can apply. Applicants do not should be registered nonprofit organisations. However, candidates will need to have a transparent technique or be actively concerned in river safety efforts.

Due to present limitations, the Free Rivers Fund can’t course of purposes from Africa.

Funding Structure

Because of its authorized framework, the Free Rivers Fund can’t switch cash on to grantees. Instead, the organisation pays project-related bills and invoices on behalf of grantees.

The actual quantity awarded varies every year relying on accessible donations and the urgency of purposes. Typically, tasks obtain between €1,000 and €2,000.

Application Timeline and Process

Applications open yearly on November 1. For the 2025–2026 cycle:

• Application Opens: November 1, 2025
• Application Deadline: January 10, 2026
• Selection Announcement: End of January 2026

The application course of is deliberately easy and non-bureaucratic. Applicants should full the net application kind solely; further paperwork shouldn’t be despatched except requested.

Reporting Requirements

The FRF goals to help activists with out putting administrative burdens on them. Grantees are required to offer solely:

• One undertaking replace throughout the grant interval
• One high-quality photograph
• A brief abstract (most 4 sentences) describing progress and actions

This replace permits the FRF to tell donors about how their contributions are getting used.

Why Apply?

The Free Rivers Fund gives a uncommon alternative for grassroots environmental defenders to obtain focused help for direct motion. With versatile funding, minimal reporting necessities, and a deal with pressing conservation work, the grant is right for teams combating to guard wild rivers and resist dangerous improvement.

How to Apply

Applications should be submitted by the online form accessible between November 1, 2025, and January 10, 2026.

For further questions, candidates could contact the Free Rivers Fund directly here.

For extra alternatives, click on right here.

 

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