nayafia / microgrants Goto Github PK

The Pollination Project awards seed grants daily to social change leaders seeking to benefit the world (both individuals, and community groups that do not have paid staff). Up to $1,000 per initial grant. Successful grantees become eligible for additional grants up to $5,000.

Do you know of any other lists of available grants similar to this, preferably more about grants in the $10k range?

Thanks for putting this list together, it's helpful.

I read your announcement on the first round of Helium Grants, and this line really resonated with me:

Finally, a lot of people were looking for accountability. Being selected wasn’t so much about needing money as having someone believe in them. The $5K would signify that their idea was worth pursuing.

This is something I think about a lot. There's a big part of me that feels that the thing my projects are missing to get off the ground isn't money (most of my projects wouldn't cost anything up front, and I feel that I could probably find a way to monetize them once they're up and running), but recognition: I've started more than a few projects that have reached viability (like Plushu and OPWS), but they've floundered because I didn't have any way to get anybody else interested in them, to a point where I could sustain the interest to keep developing them beyond just an MVP. (Working on a big project that nobody's seeing makes me feel like Henry Darger, a poor, isolated custodian who spent his life writing a fifteen-thousand-page manuscript that nobody even knew he was working on until his landlords found it the day before he died.)

I've found myself wishing that there was something like Y Combinator, but without the monetary expectations (on either side): a group of smart, well-connected mentors who can help put its selected applicants in touch with potentially-interested parties, can help them write press releases and things like that, and, most importantly, can keep tabs on their progress, and give them encouragement and/or blunt feedback (when called for) to help point them in the right direction when they're stuck.

Do you (or anybody else reading this issue) know of any groups like this? If not, how might such a group be founded? Would it maybe make sense to keep a list of "non-monetary grants" like this in this repository (possibly in a separate .md file from the README)?

Opportunity Fund https://www.opportunityfund.org/ appears to be Accion Opportunity Fund https://aofund.org/ now.

https://github.com/ralphtheninja/open-funding is more focused ("funding open source projects") so probably it would not be useful to copy programs, but maybe it would be useful to link it?

So I am understanding it right that the most important fields of research have not microgrants funding?

AI grant is (was?) dead https://aigrant.org/

NLNet Foundation seemed great except it require to open source the code which is a no-no... (why would I work on something groundbreaking and get zero economic and executive reward on it?)

Maybe scifounders is fit for the purpose?
Hope it doesn't require a diploma/license nor physical presence.

Basically that issue is about the need of including more grants for fundamental research (could be medecine too), that does not require open sourcing work.

As per their official notice, the Uncharted Journalism Fund has been shutdown. Hence, it should be added to grant programs are no longer active, but you might find them useful to read about as case studies.

Would really appreciate it if you could add the Tyk fund to this list.

About Tyk
Tyk is an Open Source API gateway & API management platform. Whether internal, external, public or highly encrypted systems, Tyk helps businesses drive value across the retail, finance, telecoms, healthcare, or media industries (to name just a few!)

Brands using Tyk range from Singapore Post and Skills, Future Singapore, to global organisations like Capital One, the Financial Times, and Starbucks. They have a varied user base hailing from every continent – even Antarctica!.

About the Tyk Side Project Fund:
Tyk’s own history is rooted in starting as a side project out of necessity. Martin Buhr, CEO and Founder of Tyk, needed a simple, flexible and low-cost solution for API management. After facing the challenges of getting a technology that worked in the way he needed for his role, Martin set about creating his own platform. And so Tyk was born. Tyk’s Open Source API Gateway, and subsequent Management Platform, has now been installed by thousands of hobbyists, tinkerers and non-profits alike.

Tyk now wants to provide support to those who have ideas for their own exciting side projects, but are struggling to get started or can’t afford a necessary element for it to work. They’re doing this through a micro-grant programme that offers upto £500 per accepted project. The deadline for applying is 31st March, 2020.

Click here to read more and apply: https://tyk.io/fund/

Setting up GitHub pages (which, btw, optionally supports adding custom domains, say microgrants.dev, for free) is pretty straight-forward, and you can see what the result looks like here: https://ignoramous.github.io/microgrants/

Steps (see also):

1. Click on project's Settings tab.
   a. Under Options (left nav), go to the GitHub Pages section
   b. Enable it for the master branch.
   c. Choose a theme.
   d. Commit (without committing index.md).
2. Stylize README.md as appropriate.
3. Wait for the deployment to complete (See the new Environment section on the GitHub project's front page), once that's done, the webpage should be up and running.

Perhaps you could add my website, Atila to this repo as a resource for people who want to start a microgrant but need a tool to help them manage the logistics and they don't have to worry about all the admin work.

I built Atila to makes it easy for more people to start and manage microgrants for students.

So essentially Atila handles all the logistical stuff like helping the sponsor find students to apply, ranking and scoring applications, messaging finalists and winners, handling the payment etc.

This allows the sponsor to just focus on funding the microgrant, reviewing the applications and picking the winner.

I call it a scholarship but actually I just realized that a scholarship is basically a microgrant for students.

For example, here is a microgrant we have for any student working on a side project.

"Releases No releases published" is displayed right now, fortunately this pointless section can be removed.

"Packages No packages published" also can be removed.

Edit repo page config to remove it (cog next to the description).

I am not making a PR as it is defined in proprietary github settings, not in a git repository - and I have no rights to modify repo settings.

Up to $3000 CAD a few time a year.
http://unchartedjournalism.org/

Awesome Journalism - AwesomeJournalism.org

Awesome Journalism is a platform for people and organizations that support and advance the interest of journalism in the world.

Each independent and fully autonomous chapter funds and supports awesome local journalism projects through micro-grants, usually given out monthly.

These micro-grants come out of pockets of the chapter's "trustees" and are given on a no-strings-attached basis to people and groups working on awesome journalism stories and projects.

Disclaimer: I don't know much about these apart from what their webpages say, haven't done any research. But I came across them on the Internet and thought that this list is a nice central place to have them.

• Sci-Founder Fellowship: https://sci-founder.com/
• Z Fellows: https://www.zfellows.com/

Dear Nadia,

Humbly introducing Guaana.com for your insightful analysis, a platform with an autonomous (or decentralized if you like) funding process.

Switch is the Prague Civil Society Centre’s grant scheme for tech solutions to social issues across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It offers funding of up to EUR 8,000 and is designed for anybody with an idea that uses technology – in the broadest sense – to transform their society, spread their message, push for change or improve their community.

https://praguecivilsociety.org/switch-2019/

Switch looks to kick-start new ideas, turn prototypes into projects, and help civic tech initiatives scale-up.

The call for 2020 proposals will open in the late fall 2019.

Switch is open to any individual, group or organisation which has a tech-based solution to a social problem, or a project to change their society. You can be an activist, an IT professional, a journalist, blogger, campaigner, social entrepreneur, fully-fledged NGO or none of the above. We don’t care what box you tick, as long as you can think outside of it and tell us how you are going to make your city, village, country, or the entire region, more conscious, tolerant, open, informed or empowered.

You should live and work in one – or more – of the countries displayed in yellow on the map below. However, projects do not have to be country-specific, and we encourage cross-border initiatives or ideas which can be replicated or scaled-up across the region.

We are also really interested to hear from people who have never received a grant of this kind before, or who have difficulties accessing funding. And, we look for original, unorthodox and creative partnerships – those which bring people from different industries, backgrounds, cities and countries together, and which show the power of collaboration and teamwork.

The @okfn has a fund that gives up to 30.000€ to open source projects. Only catch: you have to life in germany.

http://prototypefund.de/