The Boring Fund 2025

Last year, we launched The Boring Fund to address a challenge we’d heard time and again from our community: The foundational elements of conservation technology work, such as developing training materials, maintaining critical infrastructure, curating historical or large amounts of data, or writing proper documentation, are too often dismissed or deemed unworthy of funding. While they’re not flashy or attention-grabbing, they’re essential to the progression of our sector. We received 227 applications for just five grants, clearly demonstrating the scale of need. Applications came from every region, with especially strong demand from the Global South, including 77 applications from Africa, 36 from Asia, and 22 from South America. These applications highlighted the depth of innovation happening in under-resourced regions and the critical importance of supporting this foundational work on a global scale. (Learn about the grantees here.) This year, we're responding to the overwhelming demand by expanding the fund. With the continued support of Arm, the company building the future of computing, we’re increasing the number of projects we can support by expanding the total grant funding to $80,000. Our goal remains the same: to fund the "boring" but vital work that makes conservation technology more accessible, sustainable, and effective for everyone. If you have an idea that strengthens the foundations of this field, whether through training, documentation, infrastructure, or beyond, we want to hear from you.