civic.garden microgrants
civic.garden is launching an experimental grant program designed to give a boost to burgeoning civic and public interest technology projects.
In this first phase, we will be giving out a few quarterly microgrants-- one time donations of up to $1000 to support community-selected projects.
The ideal project should:
- Serve some positive purpose in society. For example:
- Increase civic awareness or engagement.
- Enable people to transition away from big tech companies.
- Help people engage more thoughtfully with tech's impact on the environment.
- Already exist in some form. A work-in-progress or a prototype is ok, but we need to see some evidence of existing effort.
- Have a document/page clearly articulating the project’s goals and current status.
- Be open to collaboration/contribution. Have a document that clearly shows where people can contribute, and how.
- Have a clear financial need that a grant of under $1000 could substantially benefit.
- web hosting or other expenses
- hardware for testing
- bug/feature bounties
- NOT: LLM tokens for code generation, open-ended donations
If your project meets those criteria, we’d love to consider you.
Timeline
| Date* | |
|---|---|
| Nov 15 | Proposal Deadline |
| Dec 1 - Dec 15 | Finalist Interviews |
| Dec 20 | Selected Projects Notified |
| Jan 1 | Public Announcement |
| Feb 1 | Winter Project Interim Report |
| Mar 15 | Winter Project Final Report |
| Apr 1 | Final Results Published |
*Dates are approximate and subject to change.
Application Form
Selection Process
- Initial proposals will be screened by the civic.garden community, evaluated for their potential impact, feasibility, and adherence to the criteria.
- Top-ranked proposals will be invited to an interview with at least two community members. These members will make a recommendation as to whether the proposal should receive support.
- The volunteer council will make a final determination of status based on a combination of the initial community evaluation, interviewer's reports, and weighing community goals.
Additional Terms & Details
This is a volunteer-led microgrant program and we reserve the right to adjust these rules or add additional criteria as needed to protect the integrity of the program.
Participants will be notified of any material changes as soon as possible, but especially for this first iteration, there is no telling what may need to be adjusted.
Recusal
We both welcome civic.garden members to apply for microgrants, and grant applicants to apply for membership.
In order to protect the integrity of the process we ask the following:
- Members may not vote on their own proposals or any in which they have a prior relationship with the applicant and/or project. We do encourage you to discuss the proposal with the community, but please identify yourself clearly when discussing proposals that you are connected to.
- You may not encourage/invite members to join civic.garden for the explicit purpose of having them vote or otherwise weigh in on your proposal. Again, you are welcome to invite community members or others that can speak to the value of your project, but they must adhere to the first rule.
- Any member or project in violation of these rules may be warned, suspended, or banned depending on the nature of the offense.