This is a living document, and information is subject to change. Visit the funder link directly for the most up-to-date information.
- list of funders in the Open Source Alliance for Open Scholarship Handbook
- Open Tech Fund's Alternative Sources of Support list
- NLNet's list of alternative funding sources
- FOSS Jobs list of funding sources
https://boards.greenhouse.io/tweag/jobs/4638654002 -- also see blog posts https://www.tweag.io/blog/2020-02-14-os-fellowship/ and https://www.tweag.io/blog/2020-07-28-os-fellowship/
The Tweag Open Source Fellowship program invites you to contribute to the open-source community via a 12-week paid fellowship. A typical outcome would be a mix of a coordinated open source contribution, a new tool or prototype, a scientific research paper, or a conference presentation. As long as the project benefits the open-source community, interpreted broadly, it is a suitable project for a Fellowship; research-oriented or risky Fellowships are explicitly permitted.
Budget: "Fellows earn compensation according to the regionally adjusted scale posted by the Google Summer of Code." So the stipend would be between $1500 USD and $3300 USD for twelve weeks of work.
Deadline: "Individual projects will be selected twice a year with deadlines on March 30 and September 30. Notifications will be within two weeks of these dates. The Fellowship itself must be started within 6 months of acceptance, at a time mutually agreeable to the applicant and the Tweag mentor." Currently open for applications to be reviewed in the next cycle.
Status: We're not aware of any individuals working in Python who have applied for a Tweag Fellowship. You could be the first!
Since 1997 NLnet foundation (after its historical contribution to the early internet in Europe) has been financially supporting organizations and people that contribute to an open information society. It funds those with ideas to fix the internet. The procedure is fast, competitive and open to anyone.
Eligibility: networking and internet technology, and/or especially privacy and trust enhancing technologies or search and discovery projects. "We put any money we can get our hands on where our mouth is: that is to increase the use of open technologies for society. What is important for us is that the technology you develop or help promote is usable for others and has the potential for real impact."
Deadline: frequently rolling; notification within a few months
Amount: up to 50,000 euros (about $57,000 USD)
Status: PSF has been rejected in the past, is welcome to reapply
https://www.openhumans.org/grants/
Explore, analyze, and donate your data -- doing research together!
Grants are available if you "have a project that might help grow the Open Humans ecosystem".
Deadline: "No application deadline: This opportunity remains open while funds last."
Amount: Up to $5,000 USD.
America's Seed Fund -- National Science Foundation -- SBIR | STTR. "Since 1977, America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF (also known as the NSF SBIR/STTR program) has helped startups develop their ideas and bring them to market." "Small Business Innovation Research" (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) offers "Seed capital for early stage product development". Python connection: their funding supported Kandra Labs, the makers of Zulip.
Deadline: Several different ones depending on the specific solicitation.
Amount: Up to $1.5 million.
https://rubytogether.org/projects
Open source projects that "benefit the Ruby community" are eligible. "We are happy to fund both boring work like triage and bugfixes as well as exciting work like creating new tools that have never existed before." There may be Python/Ruby interoperability stuff that is applicable here.
Deadline: Rolling, reviewed every three months.
Amount: Between $3,000 and $30,000.
https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/megagrants
Epic Games has committed $100 million to support game developers, enterprise professionals, media and entertainment creators, students, educators, and tool developers doing amazing things with Unreal Engine or enhancing open-source capabilities for the 3D graphics community.
Deadline: “The deadline for submission is directly dependent on the funds remaining in the program. At this point, there is no deadline.”
Amount: "Grants range from $5,000 to $500,000"
Eligibility: "Tool & Open-Source Developers"
Heard about this via https://godotengine.org/article/godot-engine-was-awarded-epic-megagrant -- looks like we don’t have to be directly connected to Unreal Engine to apply.
https://www.softwareheritage.org/grants/
Software Heritage seeks experts in "diverse software development platform and version control systems that are used for publicly available source code" and asks for expressions of interest. Stefano Zacchiroli writes: "We are looking for experts of specific #VCS, #package formats, and development #forges to fund in order to expand the coverage of the #SoftwareHeritage #archive." Some of the desired version control systems, code hosting platforms/forges, etc. are written in Python.
https://unicefinnovationfund.org/
The Innovation Fund allows UNICEF to quickly assess, fund and grow open-source solutions that can improve children’s lives. Financial and technological support is available for companies that are using technology in innovative ways to improve the world.
Eligibility criteria include: You must be registered as a private company, and your company/institution must be registered in a UNICEF programme country (note: the United States is not a UNICEF programme country).
Amount: approximately up to US$100,000.
Several different funds, including the "Core Infrastructure Fund" which "supports the 'building block' technologies, infrastructures, and communities relied upon by digital security and circumvention tools strengthening Internet freedom, digital security, and the overall health of the Internet."
Status: As of this writing (March 2021), only the Rapid Response Fund is open.
Deadline: Varies by fund.
Amount: Varies. CIF goes from $5,000 to $300,000. The PSF got $80,000 for PyPI improvements from OTF.
Status: PSF successfully finished our past OTF work and we are welcome to reapply.
https://www.opentech.fund/labs/red-team-lab/
Deadline: rolling We're eligible to ask for a Red Team Audit as a security audit for any of our projects.
Connection: existing grantee
Status: PSF hasn't yet started applying and Sumana thinks we should consider it.
https://bssw.io/pages/bssw-fellowship-program
BSSw Fellows are selected annually based on an application process that includes the proposal of a funded activity that promotes better scientific software. We select at least three Fellows per year and honorable mentions as appropriate. Each 2021 BSSw Fellow will receive up to $25,000 for an activity that promotes better scientific software.
Deadline: Annual application cycles, usually opening up in the summer
Amount: up to $25,000 USD.
https://linux.org.au/grants-program/
A total of $AUD 35,000 is available to fund open source and open hardware projects which will benefit our community.
This year they'd especially like applications from projects that provide technological assistance to help people get through the pandemic.
Deadline: Annual
https://innovationfund.comcast.com/
The Comcast Innovation Fund offers funding for researchers at leading academic institutions and elsewhere to support research that is of mutual interest to Comcast and the research community. It also provides funding to support open source software development.
Deadline: usually rolling; not sure how long notification/payment takes
Amount: $150,000, one-year
Status: we haven't yet started applying. Sumana thinks the GILectomy might be a promising project for them.
The Prototype Fund supports ideas in civic tech, data literacy, data security and software infrastructure. With a grant of up to €47.500, software developers, hackers, and creatives can code and develop innovative open source prototypes during a period of six months. Self-employed developers and small teams who live in Germany can apply for funding.
https://chanzuckerberg.com/rfa/essential-open-source-software-for-science/
Deadline: Varies
Amount: between $50k and $250k, 1-2 years
Status: PSF successfully applied to support the pip resolver in Cycle 1, and unsuccessfully applied for Python dev support in Cycle 3. Cycle 4 is now open.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/moss/foundational-technology/
Deadline: monthly rolling -- note: not open to new applications in 2020, more info coming in 2021 about future award cycles. https://wiki.mozilla.org/MOSS#Application_Deadlines -- takes several months to finalize & award, but you’ll generally get accepted or rejected within 6 weeks.
Amount: "historically .... $5,000 and $150,000" but max $250,000
Connection: Champions: Dan Callahan, Jannis Leidel, etc. and our liaisons from previous grants, and people we know in this list https://wiki.mozilla.org/MOSS/Foundational_Technology/Projects_We_Use
Status: Currently closed
http://www.osc.dial.community/grants.html
They're interested in helping both projects that specifically target humanitarian/international development needs and upstream software that undergirds that kind of work, funding (in a past round) "Enterprise-Level Quality Improvements", "Multi-stakeholder Collaboration", "Platform Building and Generalization", "Product Consolidation", and "Managing Upstream Dependencies and Downstream Forks". "For as many as 5 grant awards, DIAL anticipates providing up to $900,000 USD total and up to 480 hours total of complementary in-kind technical assistance through participation in the Open Source Center program. This award is expected to span six months of project activity, with an option to extend." They answered some questions in this OSC forum thread.
Status: Round 4 of their Catalytic Grants have closed, not sure when they will open up new funding rounds.
Amount: combined cash & in-kind value of up to $15,000USD. “This grant includes 50 hours of consulting time from OSC experts in preparation of the above items, and $2,5000 USD to compensate for your project’s participation in interviews and/or exercises. The total value of the grant is $15,000 USD.”