The FOSS United grants program aims to provide financial support to FOSS projects and events all over India. To date, we have disbursed over INR 2.5 crores towards Indian FOSS projects and maintainers. All FOSS United grantees are listed here - Funding and Grants | FOSS United
We have had various conversations over the last few months with grantees, GB members and at the Maintainer Summit about grants and what we can do better.
While @Nemo works on the Grants Working Group charter, we thought it would be best to rework the messaging around grants and add more structure to the program based on our learnings from the last few years.
Overall, we plan to -
Publish a thesis for FOSS United grants. This helps us communicate our vision for the program better, and also helps us decide which requests we should reject and on what basis. This is now live at FOSS United Grants thesis
Revamp the application process from inbound emails to something more structured.
Create a broader “Maintainer Programs” initiative that will subsume project grants, forklore.in etc. This will serve as a larger “Incubation Program” for our grantees that will go beyond financial support.
Make funding requirements for Indian projects more discoverable.
Link grantees (and eventually non-grantee Indian projects and maintainers) to FOSS pledge, Ten Rupee Fund, and other “giving-back” initiatives.
This forum thread serves to update the community on the various changes that will happen to the grants program over the next few months. Meanwhile, if you’re a FOSS United grantee and have feedback/suggestions, please respond here. (Please join the maintainers category to participate.)