The PADI Foundation focuses on encouraging and supporting research and education tied to aquatic environments. Its mission includes enriching mankind's understanding and encouraging the protection of ecosystems, improving the understanding of sport diving physics and physiology, and enhancing responses to climate change in coastal and ocean environments. As a non-profit organization, it operates independently of PADI, Inc., supporting its cause through grants since 1992.
The PADI Foundation’s grant program is geared towards projects that align with the following objectives: enhancing the understanding of aquatic ecosystems to promote conservation efforts, advancing knowledge in sport diving physics and physiology for the diving community’s welfare, and improving the understanding of and response to climate-change-related hazards in coastal and ocean environments. The Foundation offers financial support for proposals, with an emphasis on those with budgets up to $20,000, although the average funded project ranges from $5,000 to $10,000. Since its inception, the Foundation has contributed almost $4.7 million towards almost 900 projects, demonstrating a significant commitment to its mission.