Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund
Overview
The Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund is an innovative philanthropy proving small grants to boots-on-the-ground, get-your-hands-dirty, in-the-field species conservation projects for the world’s most threatened species.
Through innovative micro-financing, the MBZ Fund empowers conservationists to fight the extinction crisis instead of bureaucracy and red-tape. To date the Fund has awarded over 2000 grants to a diverse range of species across the world.
The Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund is a philanthropic endowment established to do the following:
- Provide targeted grants to individual species conservation initiatives
- Recognize leaders in the field of species conservation; and
- Elevate the importance of species in the broader conservation debate.
The Fund’s reach is truly global, and its species interest is non-discriminatory. It is open to applications for funding support from conservationists based in all parts of the world.
Grant size
Grants will be awarded based on their ability to meet criteria pre-determined by the Species Fund, and are for maximum of $25,000 for each project.
Language: Applications must be submitted in English.
Currency: Budgets must be submitted in US Dollars.
Maximum Grant: The Fund maximum grant size is $25,000, and any application asking for more than this from the Fund will be rejected. The total budget of a project can be higher if there are other sources of funding.
Conservation status: The Fund was established to support species conservation work, and so if your project is not about an endangered species it is probably not worth your while submitting an application.
Content: Text provided in an application should be kept concise and clear, with clearly stated quantitative goals, aims and methods. When writing an application, please bear in mind that there is only so much text which the Advisory Board and the Fund’s board of directors are capable of reading. Priority will be given to those projects that support the professional development of young conservationists.
Core costs: The Fund will not contribute to the core running costs of an organization or administrative overheads, and yet does recognize that sometimes support salaries, stipends, per diems and project related living costs can be a vital part of in situ conservation work.
Species: Generally the Fund would prefer to support projects which focus on a single species, but it also recognizes that in some geographic and taxonomic circumstances it makes more sense to group a number of species.
Grant amount: The Fund will not provide a grant of more than $25,000.
Grants for continuation: The Fund is happy to provide continuation support for a project which had previously been supported, which is now completed and for which the Fund has received all required reporting by the time of the respective submission deadline.
You can complete and submit the application online: https://www.speciesconservation.org/grants/
Please note that the MBZ Fund remains open to receiving online applications despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The next application deadline is 28th February, 2022.
