Sport and recreation are important for everyone — but people with disabilities face significant barriers to participation. These include physical accessibility of facilities, availability of adapted equipment, lack of trained coaches and officials who understand disability, transport barriers, and the higher costs associated with adapted sport. Philanthropic grants play an important role in addressing these barriers and expanding sport participation for disabled New Zealanders.
Paralympics New Zealand
Paralympics New Zealand is the national body for Paralympic sport in New Zealand — selecting and preparing New Zealand teams for the Paralympic Games and other international competition. It works with national disability sport organisations (NDSOs) and coordinates high performance athlete support.
Halberg Foundation
The Halberg Foundation (named after Murray Halberg, Olympic champion and disability sport advocate) is New Zealand's primary funder of sport and recreation for people with physical disabilities. It funds participation programmes, equipment, and events across New Zealand.
Blind Sport New Zealand / Recreation Aotearoa
Blind Sport New Zealand is the national body for sport for blind and low-vision New Zealanders. Recreation Aotearoa leads on inclusive recreation more broadly.
Regional disability sport organisations
Regional and local disability sport organisations coordinate sport and recreation for people with specific disabilities — cerebral palsy, intellectual disabilities, spinal cord injuries, hearing impairment, limb differences, and others.
National Sport Organisations (NSOs) with disability programmes
Many mainstream NSOs have disability components — Blind Cricket, Wheelchair Basketball, Deaf Rugby — delivered through specialist structures within or alongside mainstream sport.
Community disability sport
At the community level, recreation centres, clubs, and community organisations offer inclusive recreation programmes alongside disability-specific sport.
Sport NZ: Funds disability sport through its community sport investment framework; RSTs (Regional Sports Trusts) distribute some disability sport funding regionally.
ACC: Funds sport and recreation participation for some people who sustained disability through injury, as part of rehabilitation.
Ministry of Social Development: Some disability community participation funding through Whaikaha (Ministry of Disabled People) contracts and MSD disability support programmes.
Whaikaha — Ministry of Disabled People: Administers disability funding including some community participation support.
Equipment grants
Adaptive equipment for disability sport is expensive — handbikes, sit-skis, wheelchairs designed for specific sports, adapted swimming flotation, specialist prosthetics for sport. Individual athletes and clubs often face significant cost barriers. Grants for adapted equipment are directly enabling for participation.
Inclusive programme development
Mainstream sport clubs and facilities rarely have the knowledge or resources to make their programmes inclusive. Grants supporting inclusive programme development — training coaches, adapting facilities, creating inclusive sport pathways — improve mainstream club inclusivity rather than creating parallel disability-only structures.
High performance athlete support
Para-athletes at competitive levels need the same support as able-bodied athletes — coaching, training, travel to competition, physiotherapy, psychology support — but often with significantly more cost (specialised equipment, modified facilities). Grants supporting high performance para-athletes fill gaps in government high performance investment.
Regional disability sport infrastructure
Regional disability sport often lacks the funding for basic infrastructure — a regional coordinator, equipment pools that clubs can borrow from, events that create opportunities for disabled athletes to compete locally. Regional grants create the infrastructure for local participation.
Transport and access
Transport is a significant barrier to disability sport participation. Grants supporting transport — volunteer driver programmes, accessible van fleets, subsidised taxi costs — enable disabled people to reach sport and recreation opportunities.
Volunteer development
Disability sport relies heavily on volunteers — coaches, classifiers, event officials, support workers. Grants for volunteer training and development build the human capacity that makes disability sport possible.
Nothing about us without us: Disability sport grantmaking should centre the voice of disabled athletes and disability community members in design and decision-making. Funders who make grants about disability sport without involving disabled people in those decisions are likely to fund the wrong things.
Inclusion and para-sport are both needed: There's an ongoing debate in disability sport between inclusion (disabled people participating alongside non-disabled people in mainstream settings) and para-sport (dedicated competition in disability sport categories). Both serve important purposes; effective disability sport systems need both.
Equity of experience, not identical provision: Equal access doesn't mean identical provision — it means equivalent quality of sport experience. Sometimes that requires different funding, different facilities, or different coaching.
Investment in the pathway, not just elite competition: High performance para-sport is important for its visibility and inspiration value. But the pathway — community participation, club sport, regional competition — needs investment at every level, not just the top.
Attend to intersectionality: Disabled people who are also Māori, Pacific, rural, or low-income face compounding barriers. Disability sport grants that don't attend to these intersections may inadvertently serve primarily well-resourced, urban, Pākehā disabled people.
Key questions for funders:
Tahua's grants management platform supports disability sport funders — with the grant tracking, impact measurement, and reporting tools that help funders understand whether their investment in inclusive recreation is removing barriers and expanding participation.