Funding from Sea-Watch e.V.

For a strong civil fleet which stands against letting people die in the Mediterranean

We are committed to ensuring that no one has to die crossing Europe’s sea borders and that the European Union finally enables safe escape routes and freedom of movement for all people. We want to encourage fellow activists to do the same. That is why, in line with our goals, we pass on funds to other organisations and initiatives that are committed to the long-term and sustainable strengthening of the civilian fleet.

Funding Period 2026

Proposals for funding can be submitted from 10 March to 10 May 2026 inclusive.
The funding budget for 2025 is €250.000. As last year, a maximum of 1/3 of the total funding budget can be applied for.

As soon as the decision has been made, we will contact everyone who has submitted a proposal. We plan to make a decision on the award by August. Please understand that we cannot provide any information on the status of the decision before then.

Funding Guideline

At least one of these criteria must be met:

We fund projects that…

  • serve to save human lives from distress at sea and dangerous situations for people fleeing across the Mediterranean, or
  • strengthen the civilian sea rescue fleet, for example by establishing and expanding relevant infrastructure, or
  • pursue new operational paths to enable the agility, operational capability and future viability of the civilian fleet.

Due to our experience and expertise, we have a clear focus on sea rescue in the Mediterranean, as we are simply better able to assess projects in this area than projects in other contexts. However, we reserve to finance projects that do not correspond to this focus but fall within the general statutory purposes of Sea-Watch e.V. in exceptional cases.

The following requirements must all be met in any case:

  • Non-profit status: You either have non-profit status or are based at an organisation that has non-profit status. You can also submit an application if you do not yet have proof of non-profit status but have already applied for it. In any case, proof of non-profit status must be provided at the latest when the funding is paid out.
  • The impact of your project goes beyond the individual case.
  • You are neither in a liquidity crisis nor have you already filed for insolvency.
  • For projects in the field of sea rescue, you ensure compliance with certain guidelines (see “Declaration” in the application documents).

The legal basis is our funding guideline.

Documents

The space assigned for the project description and financial plan is kept short deliberately to save both our capacities. We are legally obliged to request certain documents from funding partners. The basis for all other information that we request from you is simply this:

We want to understand what you are planning and how you are realising it.

It is crucial for us that your project is based on a solid plan that aims to contribute to the funding criteria and the overarching goal:

Safe passage and a strong civilian fleet.

LeaveNoOneBehind, Safe Passage Fund, Sea-Watch e.V. und United4Rescue are working together to increase the impact of our funding budgets. To this end, starting this year, we will be sharing information about incoming funding applications with these organizations. Therefore, you will now find a data processing form in the application documents.

Notes on filling the form:

  • Please send us the application form completed in English including all specified attachments in one single pdf document. If filling out the form in English is a challenge for you, German is also fine.
  • The checkboxes are not selectable in all apps. If you have difficulties with this, open the pdf in the Firefox browser, where they work reliably.
  • If the text is not displayed completely when writing in the app you are using to open and edit the pdf, write the text in a word processing program first and then copy it into the text box in the pdf.

FAQ

What types of costs are eligible for funding?

As long as they are part of a solid concept in line with our funding criteria: All, e.g. also personnel costs.

The term “project” doesn't quite fit what we want to apply for funding for, how should we deal with this?

For lack of a better term, we continue to use the term “project”. However, this does not mean that our requirements correspond to the classic definitions of project funding. For example, your project does not have to be “innovative” or separate from operating costs. For us, project here simply means framing your activity in such a way that we can understand what you want to do and how money from Sea-Watch should contribute to it. In this sense, for example, “Operations 2025” could be a project for which you apply to Sea-Watch for part of the costs (e.g. personnel costs for a specific position).

Do you also finance retrospective project costs?

In principle, yes, as long as the costs were incurred no more than 1 year ago. If you want to request retroactive cost coverage, please describe the situation in a few lines and put your request in context with the general financial situation of your organisation. For example, “We have incurred debt in order to be able to carry out mission XYZ”, or similar.

If you have any other questions about the funding from Sea-Watch, please contact us at funding@sea-watch.org