NATO announces Societal Resilience Grants 2025

NATO encourages strong civil society involvement in public debate around security and defence issues, and individual and collective efforts to make an impact. In doing so, NATO seeks to promote understanding, trust in and support for the Alliance’s roles and mission: preserving peace and preventing conflict.

Priority Areas

• Countering information threats:
  • Projects that build and strengthen resilience in NATO Allies and partner countries against information threats, including those focusing on how information manipulation undermines democratic institutions and exacerbates polarisation;
  • Projects that develop or further strengthen collaborative approaches for analysing and assessing information threats, including those working on a common analytical framework and methodology;
  • Projects that identify, expose and raise awareness of manipulative tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) used by state and non-state actors;
  • Projects that support civil society organisations working on information threats who are targeted and attacked by foreign actors because of this work;
  • Projects that build capacity in organisations working on and promoting media and information literacy;
  • Projects raising awareness and offering solutions to protect digital privacy;
  • Projects that focus on capacity building for stakeholders globally on countering information threats – such capacity building should focus on sustainability and interoperability with global initiatives and be specific in nature;
  • Projects that raise awareness about NATO in NATO countries, partners and globally, including local initiatives to raise awareness about information manipulation targeting NATO specifically;
  • Projects that promote NATO’s support for Ukraine and counter information threats on this topic, including through the use of open-source intelligence (OSINT).
• Defending NATO values:
  • Projects that contribute to empowering organisations advocating for human rights and democratic governance, with focus on areas relating to NATO priorities;
  • Projects in NATO Allied countries that explain the importance of the rules-based international order;
  • Projects focused on strengthening civil society actors active in conflict prevention;
  • Projects that enable engagement with youth audiences on the importance of defending democratic values to address new and evolving security challenges;
  • Projects encouraging community engagement, dialogue, fostering civic education and encouraging public participation in governance;
  • Projects that support coordinated responses to protect and promote democratic values;
  • Projects that build and strengthen societal resilience among publics in NATO Allied countries and partner countries, including with focus on promoting credible information on defence and security issues;
  • Projects that raise awareness about NATO values in NATO countries, partners and globally, including targeted local initiatives to reach priority audiences.
• Cooperative security in NATO’s southern neighbourhood:
  • Projects that contribute to fostering greater regional security and stability, contributing to peace and prosperity;
  • Projects that foster the building of networks of like-minded communities between publics in NATO countries and in partner countries;
  • Projects that enable engagement with youth audiences and civil society organisations in NATO’s Southern Neighbourhood;
  • Projects that empower civil society organisations’ initiatives and support capacity building on issues relevant to NATO;
  • Projects that inspire dialogue and cross-cultural understanding around NATO’s mutually beneficial partnerships;
  • Projects that tackle misperceptions about NATO and explain the Alliance’s purpose, including through educational and innovative initiatives;
  • Projects that promote dialogue on key security issues of mutual interest to NATO and partner countries;
  • Projects that explain the benefits of individual partnerships with NATO.
• Empowering women contributing to peace, security and societal resilience:
  • Projects that portray and help amplify women’s perspectives on NATO areas of work within NATO member and partner countries, including Ukraine;
  • Projects that showcase the added value of applying gender perspectives to NATO’s core tasks: deterrence and defence, crisis prevention and management and cooperative security;
  • Projects that raise awareness on countering gendered information threats, the weaponization of gender narratives and tactics employed in hostile information strategies that target social cohesion;
  • Projects that address gender-themed information threats facilitated by digital, new and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence;
  • Projects that focus on gendered aspects on societal resilience;
  • Projects that promote gender equality in the defence and security realm, as well as advance gender-responsive leadership and accountability;
  • Projects that create awareness and enhance knowledge of the intersection between gender, climate and security.
• Free and independent media:
  • Projects offering practical support to journalists and media organisations, especially those affected by war, instability and persecution;
  • Projects that raise awareness on media freedom, advocate for lifting restrictions on press freedom, counter censorship and promote public debate;
  • Projects that help to build networks of media representatives for improved regional and cross-cutting understanding of key security and defence topics;
  • Projects that provide meaningful assistance to media organisations to cover relevant foreign policy, security and defence related topics;
  • Projects that focus on educational media initiatives for young journalists.

Funding Information

• Depending on the scale and quality of the proposed project, NATO support ranges from approximately EUR 5,000 to EUR 15,000.
• Exceptionally, projects above these amounts will also be considered, but should not exceed EUR 25,000.
• The final amount granted by NATO to a successful project may be lower than the amount initially requested.

Eligible Projects

• They will consider a variety of projects in the following fields:
  • Grassroots initiatives and collective action;
  • Digital projects (podcasts, games, documentary series, etc.);
  • Campaigns (online, face-to-face, etc.);
  • Academic and investigative research (reports, innovative methodologies, etc.);
  • Capacity building, training programmes and workshops;
  • Community-building initiatives;
  • Public events and seminars;
  • Other relevant projects promoting peace and security.

Target Audience

• The grants aim to support initiatives that reach out to audiences across the Alliance, in partner countries and globally. Particular focus should be placed on outreach to youth audiences, female audiences and key opinion formers, including those who have not previously connected with NATO.
• The range of audiences that NATO seeks to reach include:
  • Audiences who have an interest in NATO and wish to engage in discussions related to the organisation’s priorities.
  • Audiences in locations where NATO’s role is not well known or who may be sceptical about NATO, but who are open to learning more.
  • Audiences in challenging information environments, in particular on topics related to the Alliance, but who are open to learning more.

Selection Criteria

• The NATO Public Diplomacy Division uses the following criteria to select projects for co-sponsorship:
  • Relevance to NATO’s current political agenda and communication priorities;
  • Impact with civil society, educational value and/or relevance to public discussion of peace and security issues;
  • Contribution of the project to NATO’s goal of contributing to relevant positive actions related to peace and security, as well as informed debate on these issues;
  • Expected impact and reach of the project among target audiences, in offline and online spaces;
  • Proven expertise of the organisation related to each specific call for grants;
  • Ability to use resources efficiently to achieve the expected outcome.

For more information, visit NATO.