psf / project-funding-wg

PSF Project Funding Working Group

Welcome to our working group!

For more about us, see our page on the PSF wiki.

Resources

This repository holds public resources for you to use:

• Available grants and similar funds
• Budgeting and proposal writing guides
• Projects and example proposals

project-funding-wg's Issues

List previously completed and in-progress grants

I'd like to have a place where I can point potential funders to our successful track record requesting funding and using it to complete projects. Ideally this would include:

• the project in question
• the funder
• the amount funded
• the composition of the team that was contracted to work on the project
• the initial grant request
• any reports that were generated during the project or after it was completed
• any other "results"

Start a FAQ

We're likely to get some repeated questions about the WG, it would be nice to include a FAQ here.

Specifically, there are some questions answered in https://www.harihareswara.net/sumana/2020/08/28/0 that would make a good starting point.

Add advice and fundable ideas to resources

It's pretty skeletal, but let's add 2 pages to this repo:

Ideas for fundable projects

Currently listing:

• https://github.com/python/steering-council/issues
• https://github.com/psf/fundable-packaging-improvements

Advice for volunteers

Starting with some placeholders for advice about:

• Developing budgets, using resources like the OSAOS Handbook budgeting guide
• Grantcraft (submitting proposals, drafting interim reports, and keeping up relationships with funders afterward -- like in this Conservancy blog post)
• Coordinating with the PSF, other WGs, and the Steering Council to decide priorities

CZI EOSS Cycle 5 letter of intent proposals

https://chanzuckerberg.com/rfa/essential-open-source-software-for-science/

Just flagging for awareness, and to trigger this discussion of whether there's anything that needs to be funded that would benefit from such a grant.

Update cisco grant info

The applications are open again!

Add NASA to the list of funders?

NASA has an OSS funding support thing -- "E.7 Support for Open Source Tools, Frameworks, and Libraries"

Source: https://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/solicitations/summary.do?solId=%7b958CF134-D655-E512-B5AD-84501D14A0C1%7d&path=&method=init

NOTICE: Amended October 19, 2020. This amendment releases the final text for this program element. Optional notices of intent to propose are requested by November 19, 2020 and the due date for proposals is January 19, 2021.

From the PDF describing the grant:

it is anticipated that the funding available for awards made in response to proposals to this program element will be $1.5 million per year. This is expected to support 5-10 projects for the call. The awards will be for a maximum duration of three years.

Example proposals aren't public

It seems the example proposals listed here: https://github.com/psf/project-funding-wg/blob/master/projects.md aren't public. They are asking me to request access on Google. Is this intentional?

Write funding matcher quiz

I feel like it wouldn't be too difficult to implement a basic decision tree algorithm on the backend of a quiz that OSS maintainers could take to find the right funder/org for their use case. Questions could revolve around the size, scope, history, impact, and technical breadth of the project, with each answer narrowing the potential funder(s) for their app. What do you guys think?

Add example proposals/templates

At the last meeting we discussed adding recent proposals (or sections thereof) to this repo. Let's actually do that!

collect basic "how this funded project went" case studies/surveys

I think people/groups who are curious about doing funded projects might find it useful to see after-project reports/retrospectives to see what's possible, what's hard, etc. We could use https://lab.civicrm.org/community/sustainability/-/wikis/User-Surveys-Core-(Mozilla-Open-Source-Seed-Fund) as an example. CiviCRM has an internal reporting template for 'community-driven, core-team supported, external fundraising':

• How much?
• When was it won?
• How was it won?
• To do what?
• How much time has been spent (paid and unpaid)?
  • Delivery team
  • Core team
  • Community
• What did we end up with?
• Was it worth it?
  • Delivery team says:
  • Core says:
  • Community says:
• Lessons
• What next?

Add Tidelift to a secondary "you are seeking funding" list/resource

Some open source maintainers don't yet know about funding available from Tidelift for the packages they already maintain. I think we should add it to the funders list, but I am currently a consultant for Tidelift (just a few hours per year) so I'm a bit biased and I want others' opinions first. Thoughts?

@ericholscher @marlenezw @di @xmunoz @jackiekazil?

OTF re-opened the rapid response fund today!

https://www.opentech.fund/funds/rapid-response-fund/
https://www.opentech.fund/news/rapid-response-fund-open/