Click Clack: Next Era Grant

The Click Clack: Next Era Grant is a private initiative powered by Under Armour and The DICK'S Sporting Goods Foundation and delivered by Beyond Sport. Beyond Sport is a global foundation that uses sport to address social issues and build opportunity, equity and community. Since 2008, Beyond Sport reports that it has raised $30 million to promote social equity through sport, funded 641 initiatives, and granted more than $21 million to organizations across 82 countries, in addition to providing capacity-building tools. The Click Clack: Next Era Grant launched in early 2026 through a collective $1 million commitment from Under Armour and The DICK'S Sporting Goods Foundation. The grant is designed to expand access to girls' flag football and use the sport to build confidence, leadership skills, teamwork and opportunities for girls on and off the field. The initiative responds to unequal access to youth sports and infrastructure gaps affecting sustained and equitable participation in girls' flag football. The program identifies uneven access to organized leagues, trained coaches and consistent school-based opportunities, as well as registration, equipment and facility costs, as barriers to participation. Its broader objective is to reduce barriers, improve coaching quality and strengthen the ecosystem that enables girls to participate and thrive. The initiative supports out-of-school-time organizations to expand access to safe, structured play in communities where opportunities are limited while also strengthening the foundation needed to advance state sanctioning of girls' flag football as a varsity sport. Support is described as including critical financial resources, top-tier equipment and apparel, and access to high-quality coach education through Positive Coaching Alliance. Beyond Sport's broader delivery model includes investment through Beyond Sport Funds, partnered program design, partnered grant delivery and capacity-building workshops. However, the supplied Click Clack program information does not state individual award minimums or maximums, the number of awards, a required matching contribution, a grant performance period or detailed restrictions governing use of the grant's financial resources. The opportunity is expressly open to U.S.- and Mexico-based nonprofit organizations that are either running girls' flag football, planning to add girls' flag football to their programming, and/or working to advance state-level sanctioning of the sport. No U.S. state-specific restriction is stated. The supplied materials do not establish a particular nonprofit tax classification, fiscal sponsorship requirements, minimum operating history, organization-size threshold, faith-based restrictions or eligibility for for-profit entities, governments, schools, institutions of higher education or individuals. The supplied materials do not provide an application portal, submission procedure, application form, narrative questions, required uploads, letter of intent, concept paper or other pre-application gating requirement. They also do not state formal evaluation or scoring criteria. The program language nevertheless establishes a clear focus on expanding girls' access to flag football, reducing participation barriers, supporting safe and structured play, strengthening coaching and the wider girls' flag football ecosystem, and advancing state-level sanctioning. Beyond Sport describes its organizational approach as using sport intentionally to create positive social change and identifies increased partner capacity, diversified and sustainable funding, and stronger networks advocating for sport for social change among the results of its theory of change. The grant is described as having launched in early 2026, but the supplied materials do not provide a specific application opening date, final application deadline, notification date, award date or performance period. They also do not state that applications are rolling or establish an annual, biennial or other recurring schedule. Therefore, no future application cycle can be calculated from the available information. Questions about the Click Clack: Next Era Grant may be directed to programs@beyondsport.org. No individual program contact or telephone number is provided.

Demonstrate a clear connection to expanding girls' flag football access; explain how the work reduces barriers to participation and supports safe, structured play; show how programming strengthens coaching, capacity and the broader girls' flag football ecosystem and/or advances state-level sanctioning; connect proposed work to sustainable, long-term impact where supported by the project design.