Call for projects for grants

[Stormy Peters <stormy gnome org>]

Hi GNOME Foundation members,

I need your help defining GNOME projects you'd like to see happen if we had grant money to fund them.

Brian Cameron has been encouraging us to apply for grant money for a while and I think he's right - there are organizations out there willing to sponsor good work in the nonprofit space - projects that are for the good of the public.

Applying for grants is not easy. They require identifying appropriate grants, writing a proposal, and then going back and forth with the grant organization. The application process can take 6 weeks to 6 months, and while it's impossible to predict success rate, it does seem like the best average rate of any project I've talked to is about 1 in 3, so for every 3 proposals we submit, we might get one. (And that's a really, really good success rate.)

In order to successfully apply, we need project ideas. For a successful application we would need:

- A project idea. Why this project? Why is this really important?
- Urgency. Why now? Why is this idea important now? (The more urgently needed, the better according to advice I've gotten.)
- Benefits. Who will benefit from this work? Most grant organizations are nonprofits dedicated to improving the world for the public.
- Financial plan. We need to show how we'd spend the money from the grant. How much money would it take to do this project? How would we spend the money?
- Resources needed. Why these people? Why did you pick these people to work on this project? How are they qualified? Why are they the best to work on it.

So if you have project ideas, I'd love to hear them. Also, if you know of organizations in your community that offer grants, I'd be happy to help you approach them with a proposal. However, the first thing is identifying the projects and then identifying the potential grant givers.

I'm looking forward to seeing your project proposals! I've started a wiki page for ideas, http://live.gnome.org/Grants.

Thanks,

Stormy