Greetings CGP community! We would like to point your attention to breaking changes to the Community Grants Program.
In the interest of transparency and eliminating bottlenecks in the CGP, the Grants Council has decided to make the following changes:
Change 1)
The CGP will no longer be accepting applications through the “Rapid Grant” Google Form, regardless of asking amount. Instead, all technical applications for CGP funding will go through the Discourse forum, governance.cartesi.io.
As there is still a demand from the community for funding non-technical proposals (such as for events, developer groups, educational initiatives, etc.), the Developer Advocacy and Growth units may still fund such projects at their own discretion, from within their own units, separate from the purview of the CGP. Their Non-Technical Grant Application form can be found in the banner at the top of this page.
The CGP’s focus and what projects it deems acceptable will remain the same- to fund public goods and reusable open-source projects that add value to the Cartesi Ecosystem.
Change 2)
Instead of applicants proposing entire projects with milestones in a “waterfall” fashion, the CGP will enforce a “lean” approach to funding requests. In this manner, the old proposal template has been replaced with one that frames the application in terms of a POC. This new template requires the applicant to propose a POC (not a complete project), with its own budget. The budget is expected to be less than what we’ve seen for full projects since it is a POC, and not a production-ready product. The POC proposal will be accompanied by a “vision” section which acts to sell the community on the POC’s worth, as well as what a “full” version would include, should the POC succeed (i.e. just as if they proposed the project in the format previously, with milestones leading to a production-ready tool or product).
Change 3)
Instead of deliberating in a closed discourse channel, the Grants Council will deliberate on all proposals openly in the governance forum, deciding when/if these POC proposals go to a community vote, and then they are voted for on Snapshot by the community. Thus, there is no longer a notion of a “CGP rapid grant” nor a “private review by the Grants Council”.
The Council and Community will frame their feedback and evaluation in the context of evaluating the proposal as a POC, and make recommendations accordingly. For example, reminding the applicant that they should not be proposing to build the big picture yet, but helping them to find the core aspect of the project that needs to be shown as viable before work can/should begin on other portions, and proposing that central portion instead, along with the amount of money that it needs to be completed.
Supposing an applicant has successfully built, documented, and demoed the POC they proposed, they are paid the grant in-full at completion, and can then propose a more detailed and comprehensive project, to which the POC was central. This proposal will take place in the same manner, but will indicate (and reference) their previously completed POC.
If the POC fails, the applicant is still required to submit a report for why it failed, and details of their efforts. The grants council will then decide on a prorated payment at their own discretion.
You can preview the new proposal format by clicking “+ Create Topic”, and the template will pre-fill your post body.