Southeast Baltic Capacity Grant 2026

Summary

Ocean conservation suffers from the same problems as nature conservation in general: Grant-makers often prefer to fund projects with concrete outcomes, regularly focus on "innovative approaches", and are less enthusiastic for supporting the necessary infrastructure, administrative costs, and the "boring old work" that NGOs do. While funding fashions force NGOs to align their activities with the hot topics of the day, the need to secure co-funding while deadlines and funding cycles to not align leads to a constant scramble to patch together financing from multiple sources just to keep the organisation running.

BaltCF's Southeast Baltic Capacity Grant was designed to mitigate these problems for NGOs from Poland and the Baltic States: A flexible, multi-year grant that gives the grantee the freedom to use the funds for what they believe is the best way to use it for Baltic Sea conservation - without a detailled spending plan agreed upon upfront. At the same time, the grant includes a significant investment into core issues like administration, technical infrastructure and fundraising. The clear goal is to help the grantee improve their financial and operational base, so that the grant contributes to a long-term increase in the organisation's strength.

In 2026, the first grant went to Fundacja MARE, based in Sopot and the only Polish NGO that exclusively focuses on Baltic Sea conservation. The grant will generally support MARE's work in the areas of circular management of fishing gear and seagrass restoration, while also investing in building administrative and fundraising capacity, as well as digital infrastructure.