Web3 Foundation General Grants Program

As part of our commitment to promoting the Web3 ecosystem, we offer a comprehensive grants program focused on funding software development and research efforts related to Polkadot and Substrate.

For smaller technology grants up to $30k, which are tracked transparently on GitHub and disbursed in bitcoin, see our new Open Grants Program.

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• 📋 About
• 📑 Guidelines
  • Licensing
  • Documentation
  • Who we are interested in funding
• 📝 Process
• 💡 Help
  • Additional information
  • Real-time conversation
• ℹ️ License

📋 About

As part of our commitment to promoting the Web3 ecosystem, we offer a comprehensive grants program focused on funding software development and research efforts related to Polkadot and Substrate. For more information about the Web3 Foundation please visit the About page of our website.

📑 Guidelines

Technical grants are intended to fund Polkadot and Substrate specific projects in the following areas:

• software development
• research
• the production of software documentation and technical education material

For more specific information on our funding priorities, please view the Polkadot Stack and take a look at the accepted grant applications.

The funding maximum for technical grants is $100,000 per project. Teams shouldn’t seek to cover 100% of their early-stage funding via W3F Grants alone.

Any project requesting :

• $30k or less will receive approval the fastest.
• $31k - 100k will need to wait longer for a decision.

Teams can apply for grants more than once, but they need to complete the previous project (as described in their application) before receiving additional funds.

We are primarily interested in projects that can be completed in 3 months or less.

Licensing

In order to successfully receive grant funding for your application it is necessary for the project to have open source code. We prefer Apache 2.0 but the GNU GPL v3 license is also acceptable.

Documentation

To ensure ease-of-use we require all projects to create documentation that explains how their project works. At a minimum, written documentation is required for funding. Tutorials or videos are also helpful for new users to understand how to use the product.

📝 Process

If you are considering applying for a grant, please follow the process below.

1. Determine the scope of your project

   • Review the Polkadot Stack and take a look at the accepted grant applications. If your idea isn’t listed, but you think it’s cool, you can send us an email and tell us about it.
   • Ensure the scope of your project falls within the 📑 Guidelines

   Once you determine that your project falls within the Polkadot Stack and corresponds to the guidelines above, proceed to the next step.

2. Application

   We recommend checking out the technical grant template. It gives an indication of what a good roadmap should look like, plus it outlines the criteria of what we look for in an application.

   1. Fill out the Google form for your grant application by clicking the following link: ➡️ Apply here

      Partially public applications that limit financial information (e.g. funding amount requested) to the Google form are preferred. However, teams are free to make fully public applications as well as fully private applications.

      Teams that chose to make a fully private application are done once this form is complete. Teams that have chosen to make a fully or partially public application should proceed to the next step.

   2. Fully or partially public applications should be made via a pull request to this repo by following the steps below.

      1. Fork this repository.
      2. In the newly created fork, create a copy of the technical grant template.
         • Most applications should go into the speculative sub-folder.
         • In the few cases where the application is a response to specific RFP then the application should go into the rfps sub-folder.
      3. Label the file as "project_name.md".
      4. Fill out the template with the details of your project.
      5. Once you have completed the application, click on "create new pull request".
      6. The body of the pull request will show a template that requests an abstract of the project and the completion of a checklist. Please complete as appropriate and take care to include all necessary information. The pull request template can be viewed here.

3. Review

   • The W3F will review the applications received, determine if more information is required and potentially schedule a call with the team.
   • Parity Technologies may also assist in the review of some applications.

4. Decision

   • The W3F will notify the applicants of whether their proposal has been accepted for grant funding or not.
   • If a team is successful, further communication will be required to determine specific details around timelines and payment schedules.

5. Follow up

   • Once progress has started, the W3F will want to have follow up conversations to see how the project is progressing.
   • To help to speed up the milestone evaluation process, take a look at the Milestone Deliverables Guidelines

Who we are interested in funding

• Individuals
  • Developers, anyone in the community
  • Note: all contracts need to be signed with legal entities (e.g. an LLC / Ltd).
• Companies/Teams
  • Established teams with a track record
• Researchers
  • Universities/Professors

💡 Help

Additional information

• W3F Website
• W3F Forum
• W3F Twitter
• W3F Medium
• Polkadot Wiki
• Web 3.0 Reddit

Real-time conversation

We have Riot channels for real-time discussions on Web3 and Polkadot. Join the conversations.

• Web3 Foundation
• Polkadot Watercooler

ℹ️ License

Apache License 2.0 © Web3 Foundation