I'm afraid that you summarized it as it is. All funding works as project funding, with a clearly defined beginning and an end, and measurable goals and so on. The only way around that is to find private donors, i.e. individuals that are willing to regularly donate an amount to cover basic costs that do not fit in projects. In essence, that is crowdfunding, but you can get crowds to fund also without the on-line platforms ( I mention a few here https://wildhub.community/posts/basic-funding-options-for-nature-conservation?channel_id=capacity-development ). Without the platforms it is the old-school way of going door by door, standing on street corners etc. Do I need to add the following? Instead of asking for a one-time donation, ask for a regular donation with a form. Same effort, more yield.

When it comes to having established income, the above is one way out of the Catch-22. Also, I think I have seen sponsors that not necessarily require having established income, but some proof that the applicant NGO has been up and running in practice for some years. What I think they want to know is that you are serious about what you are doing and are well organized so that they have some indication that their money is spent well.

One route into existence for NGOs could be to start with some accidental big funder, but then the funder is the one initiating the NGO. The only other route that I am aware of is the grass-roots one. It starts not with a budget but with a bunch of motivated people that just start doing, like, I don't know, cleaning beaches, saving turtles, hand out leaflets on the fish market, and so on. Then here and there they apply for small projects from small sources that do not have many requirements. It may not be much, but perhaps enough to show some established income and in particular it shows success. From there they may slowly grow bigger.

You may have found them already, but for youths up to say 30, there are the 'young leaders' or 'future leaders' programs. They do not necessarily offer a lot of project money, but getting accepted helps showing that you are serious. The programs help establish a network, provide training and mentorship. And being into one or having been into one helps showing that you are serious and are ( getting ) organized.

Hi Caitlin,

I don't know about any additional funding opportunities but you could consider chatting with and potentially partnering with https://www.actionforconservation.org/

Hi Caitlin,

You can try looking through the grant sites tab on our grant worksheet template here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_3A7ZTr3yAPwXUsXBHha6nrj7OV36NNs-ZHO4FM4o3w/edit#gid=7

In the "grants" tab, you could try looking for the word "education" in the Supporting activities column and filter accordingly. For instance, I found this foundation https://potterfoundation.com/causes_we_support/education/introduction.html by taking a quick look.

Hope this helps!
Lea