How Swiss athletes get their season funded
There’s a problem that Swiss sport rarely talks about
Young athletes in Switzerland have long been training at a professional level. They travel to international competitions and pay for coaches, physiotherapy, mental training and sometimes several training camps a season. All of that costs money. At the same time, they are often barely known. They aren’t on sponsors’ radar, they don’t make the headlines and they don’t fit the funding categories of the big foundations. Anyone who doesn’t make the A squad falls through a lot of cracks. Yet the financial burden of preparing for elite sport hardly gets any smaller.
This is exactly where Swiss Athletics stepped in in 2025. Instead of watching talented athletes fail because of money, the federation teamed up with the crowdfunding platform I Believe In You to build its own channel, “Road to Tampere”. A shared showcase for the athletes preparing for the U20 European Championships. They wanted to help fund their way to Finland, and they didn’t have to do it alone.
The result, all eleven projects reached their goal
Eleven projects went live. All eleven reached their funding goal. In total, CHF 35,072 was raised against a target of CHF 29,800. That’s a completion rate of 117 percent. 312 supporters took part. In the end, ten of the eleven project creators actually qualified for the European Championships in Tampere.
What worked? Three things, each of them important.
More hands-on project support. The athletes weren’t left on their own when setting up their project pages. IBIY and Swiss Athletics actively supported them with writing, choosing images and structuring milestone goals. Anyone who has never set up a crowdfunding campaign starts with a blank screen and often just closes it again. With someone actively helping, it’s a different story.
A clear communication strategy. Instead of eleven isolated posts, there was one shared approach, with active communication on the federation’s main channels, reposts on social media and coordinated updates. An individual athlete promoting a crowdfunding campaign on Instagram reaches a few hundred people. With Swiss Athletics behind it, that quickly multiplies.
The federation gets involved. The athletes benefited from seed funding of 200 francs per project from the Hans Hubacher Stiftung, arranged by the federation. It doesn’t sound like much, but psychologically it’s worth its weight in gold. A project that doesn’t start from zero immediately looks more credible. They were also able to offer their supporters rewards that would have been harder to organise on their own, such as signed national team shirts, invitations to competitions and gear provided by the federation, free for the athletes and attractive for donors.
Now comes Eugene, and the channel opens up
Tampere is followed by the next step. “Road to Eugene” has been running since May 2026. The target event is the World Athletics U20 Championships 2026 at the legendary Hayward Field in Oregon, from 5 to 9 August. Anyone who knows Swiss athletics knows what’s at stake. At the last U20 World Championships in Lima, a record Swiss delegation of 37 athletes competed and brought home two silver medals, one in the women’s 4×100 m relay and one in the women’s heptathlon.
“For us, it is essential to support our talents as well as possible on their way to the top. With this project, we offer our athletes an easy way to receive financial support while gaining valuable experience, an ideal combination.” — Roland Hirsbrunner, Head of Partnerships and Communications, Swiss Athletics
Unlike Tampere, this time the channel isn’t limited to athletes aiming for Eugene. It’s open to all Swiss Athletics junior squad athletes. Anyone with a different season goal, a training camp to fund or gear to buy can use the channel too.
The Hans Hubacher Stiftung is on board again, and every project receives 200 francs as a direct starting boost. What’s new on top is a possible contribution from the platform’s new partner SWICA. With the SWICA Boost, donors giving 10 francs or more can trigger an additional SWICA Boost. The health insurer then adds five francs, at no extra cost to the donor. A lever that wasn’t yet in place for Tampere and that should push the amounts raised noticeably higher. IBIY keeps evolving, and the athletes benefit directly.
In the water at the same time, Road to Paris
While athletics looks to Oregon, Swiss Aquatics has chosen a different destination, Paris. Swiss athletes are set to compete at the 2026 European Aquatics Championships, and this explicitly applies to more than just young athletes. In Switzerland, aquatic athletes are in a particularly difficult financial position. Even in the top squads there’s too little visibility for the big sponsors and too much effort required for self-funding. That’s exactly why “Road to Paris” is aimed at all aquatics athletes who need financial support on their way to the European Championships, whether in swimming, artistic swimming or diving.
The same recipe for success as in Tampere applies here too, plus the new levers. The Hans Hubacher Stiftung with 200 francs per project, plus the option for donors to trigger a SWICA Boost from 10 francs. Swiss Aquatics is also putting a gear package on the table, with a T-shirt, swim cap, swim buoy and mesh bag. Gear that athletes can offer their supporters as rewards.
“With the Road to Paris project, we don’t just want to give our athletes additional financial support on their way to the 2026 European Championships. Together with I Believe In You, we are creating a platform that encourages personal initiative and allows athletes to share their personal stories and actively involve the community in their sporting journey.” — Tanja Moos, Head of Marketing, Media & Communications, Swiss Aquatics
Why this is more than two success stories
What started as a pilot in Tampere now proves it can scale. Two federations, two very different sporting worlds, two destinations. The same basic pattern everywhere. When a federation pitches in, when the platform provides active support, when communication is coordinated and when financial kick-start levers work together, crowdfunding for elite sport preparation works. Not just occasionally, but structurally.
For I Believe In You, this sends a signal beyond any single federation. The platform doesn’t see itself merely as a marketplace for individual projects, but as infrastructure that federations can use to expand their youth and athlete development. Anyone who knows the model can see it’s reproducible. The only question left is which federations will take the step next.
“We’re not building a crowdfunding tool. We’re building a bridge between a federation, its athletes and the community that carries them. Tampere was the proof, Eugene and Paris are the scale-up. What comes next only depends on which federations want to take the step.” — Pascal Magyar, CEO I Believe In You
What remains
The 2026 season will show how far the model can go. When Swiss athletes compete in Oregon and Paris, they won’t be there alone. Behind them stand federations, foundations, sponsors and a community that has become part of their story with a single click. And that’s exactly the point.
Get involved or find out more
- Swiss Athletics channel on I Believe In You, Together Beyond Limits
- Swiss Aquatics channel on I Believe In You, Road to Paris 2026
- World Athletics U20 Championships 2026 in Oregon, World Athletics U20 Championships Oregon 2026
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