Fundraising and Grants

[maisutton]

Funding opportunities

Upcoming deadlines - more details below

• NGI Commons Fund: https://nlnet.nl/commonsfund/
  • Deadline: February 1st 2024, with a deadline of April 1st 2024 12:00 CEST (noon).
• Fediversity: https://nlnet.nl/fediversity/
  • Call will be launched early 2024 (pending)
• Prototype Fund: https://prototypefund.de/en/
  • Deadline: March 31st, 2024 (23:59)

More sources of funding: https://docs.opentech.fund/otf-application-guidebook/appendix-iv-alternative-sources-of-support

Proposal ideas

• ActivityPub monetization
• BitTorrent integration

Mozilla: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/what-we-fund/

• Doesn't have current funding opportunities

Sovereign Tech Fund: https://www.sovereigntechfund.de

• General investments:
  • Deadline: not currently taking new applications until spring of 2024 (might open in March?)
  • Subject:
    • STF invests in open digital base technologies that are vital to the development of other software or enable digital networking. Projects that benefit and strengthen the open source ecosystem. Examples include libraries for programming languages, package managers, open implementations of communication protocols, administration tools for developers, digital encryption technologies, and more. No prototypes, no user-facing apps. Minimum work funded is $150k
    • Projects previously funded: https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/tech
    • Keywords are: societal relevance and undersupply.
    • We only support technologies with societal relevance, i.e., technologies from which a broad public benefits or on which particularly vulnerable groups depend. We consider technologies whose longevity or safety is at risk to be vulnerable
  • Angles:
    • undersupply of decentraliced publishing and infrastructure
    • We should follow them in https://mastodon.social/@sovtechfund

OTF: https://apply.opentech.fund/internet-freedom-fund-concept-note/

• IFF
  • Deadline: Rolling
  • Key words / subject
    • We support open technologies and communities that increase free expression, circumvent censorship, and obstruct repressive surveillance as a way to promote human rights and open societies.
    • Types of project funded: https://docs.opentech.fund/otf-application-guidebook/general-funding-guidelines#supported-effort-types
  • Ideas/angles
    • privacy / anti-censorship angle (potentially use https://veilid.com/)

NLNet: https://nlnet.nl/themes/

• NGI Commons Fund: https://nlnet.nl/commonsfund/
  • Deadline: February 1st 2024, with a deadline of April 1st 2024 12:00 CEST (noon).
  • Key words:
    • collective action and public investment; holistic, full-stack approach; shared building blocks and collective resources;
    • we believe in the power of the quadruple helix — the collaboration of the public sector, aligned companies, academia and civil society — to restore the internet
  • Funding amount:
    • "Between now and 2027 we will award an unprecedented 21.6 million euro in small to medium-size R&D grants towards solutions that bring the next generation of the internet closer."
    • We are seeking project proposals between 5.000 and 50.000 euro
  • Ideas/angles
    • Apply with Open Collective to integrate OC payments into the Fediverse
• NGI Zero Core: https://nlnet.nl/core/
  • Deadline: Feb 1, 2024 (passed)
  • Funding amount:
    • We are seeking project proposals between 5.000 and 50.000 euro's
  • Key words: security, privacy, interoperability, high availability and scalability of decentralised technologies to benefit from both 'local first' and from economies of scale without unnecessary centralisation
• Fediversity: https://nlnet.nl/fediversity/
  • Deadline: Call will be launched early 2024 (pending)
  • Funding amount:
    • We are seeking project proposals between 5.000 and 50.000 euro's
  • "Creating he hosting stack of the future"
  • Keywords
    • Proposals that can help Fediversity go harder, better, faster, stronger.
    • state-of-the-art services for the Fediverse

Prototype Fund: https://prototypefund.de/en/

• Prototype Fund
  • Deadline: March 31st, 2024 (23:59)
    • On Febuary 08, we’ll be on stand-by from 5 to 6 p.m. to offer advice and support during an online consultation.
    • online consultation for FLINTA* on February 13, also from 5 to 6 pm. You can request the link to the video conference via email.
  • Funding amount
    • up to €47,500
  • Background
    • Open Source Funding from Germany
  • Keywords
    • Civic Tech, Data Security, Data Literacy and Software Infrastructure
  • Ideas/angles
    • Prototype payments through the Fediverse

Potential corporate partnerships

• Twilio: https://www.twilio.org/
  • programmable communication tools for making and receiving phone calls, sending and receiving text messages, and performing other communication functions using its web service APIs.

  • Integration with Fediverse and dweb?

• Cloudflare: https://www.cloudflare.com/galileo/
  • In-kind free use of their cybersecurity services
• Cosmos
  • Integrating crypto payments with the Fediverse?

[RangerMauve]

Discussed today about a potential OTF proposal:

We want to make our tools usable for folks dealing with internet censorship.

Might be useful to update Agregore Mobile for Android to use more secure protocols like veilid
Might be useful to package sutty as WASM and deploy as an agregore app via DP
Integrate activitypub publishing as an agregore app

[sutty-coop]

More opportunities:

Access now

• We could fit into their 29k project grants. But they work through referrals only. Maybe we know someone that knows someone on their advisory board?

[fauno]

I see a couple orgs there where we have friends, does it have to be someone on the board or a previous grantee would work?

[RangerMauve]

Would be good to look into this too: https://github.com/OpenDefenseFund/monorepo

[sutty-coop]

I've reviewed the "More sources of funding: https://docs.opentech.fund/otf-application-guidebook/appendix-iv-alternative-sources-of-support" list. I think we've identified the most relevant and active funds to apply to already.
We could wrap up the search and focus on the following applications:

• NGI Commons Fund: https://nlnet.nl/commonsfund/

Deadline: February 1st 2024, with a deadline of April 1st 2024 12:00 CEST (noon).

• Prototype Fund: https://prototypefund.de/en/

Deadline: March 31st, 2024 (23:59)

• OTF: https://apply.opentech.fund/internet-freedom-fund-concept-note/

IFF
Deadline: Rolling
We can ask a collaborator of our for a review prior or after writing our application
Ideas/angles
privacy / anti-censorship angle (potentially use https://veilid.com/)

• Access now

We could fit into their 29k project grants, by asking a friendly ORG (Sursiendo) to refer us to their board?

• OpenDefenseFund

We should write a proposal by opening and submitting a PR here: https://github.com/OpenDefenseFund/monorepo

[writerly03]

Unfortunately, the Prototype Fund is only open to German residents (and the submissions must also be in German). See FAQ here: https://prototypefund.de/en/apply/faq/