Open grants are for novel ideas that advance the IPFS ecosystem, bring significant new usage, or directly advance the IPFS mission statemnent.
If your project is smaller in scope and less well-defined, you may want to consider the microgrant program instead. Open Grants aligned with this quarter's Focus Area will be given priority consideration.
To submit an open grant proposal, PR a proposal for the suggested improvement to this folder following the open grant proposal template. Please cover the project being proposed (including value to the IPFS ecosystem, deliverables, development, roadmap, and budget), and the team making the proposal (including your expertise and past work).
If you are uncertain of the suitability of your proposal, draft PRs are welcome and encouraged, in order to gauge community interest and begin discussion.
The first stage of approving an open grant is merging it into the repo. The goal of the review process is ensuring that the proposal is well formulated, serves the needs of the IPFS community, and meets the grant program TERMS. Accepting the PR means that the proposal is well-formed and ready to be funded, but it does not mean that funding is allocated.
Once the proposal is accepted, a tracking issue will be opened to discuss and coordinate funding.
Accepted grant PRs are available for funding by the community. You should include organizations that are likely to be interested in supporting your project (for example, Protocol Labs, Web3 Foundation, etc) in the proposal (see template). Funding organizations may request further clarification or modification to your proposal.
Proposals that do not receive funding within 3 months of submission will be archived.
Grants are currently evaluated for acceptance and funding on a rolling basis. We may switch to quarterly cohorts depending on the application volume.
Open grants are just one aspect of the IPFS project's overall grant program. Check out the top level of the IPFS Grant Platform repo to see the big picture.