- 👋 Introduction
- 🎚️ Grant Levels
- 📝 Process
- 📬 Suggest a Project
- 🛠️ Maintenance Grants
- 💰 Referral Program
- 💡 Help
The EWC Community Grant Program supports projects building on top of Energy Web’s open-source technology stack. If your team has great ideas and concrete implementation plans aligned with Energy Web’s mission you’ve landed in the right place.
The Community Grant Program accepts applications on a rolling basis. If you have any questions check the FAQs or feel free to reach out.
As long as your project is aligned with Energy Web’s mission you are safe to assume it is within scope. The Program’s scope is purposely wide to allow for all types of innovative ideas. The project Guidelines include a non-exhaustive list of topics that applicants can explore.
Make sure to keep an eye out for calls under specific topics. These will be published on this site.
The Community Fund Committee is embodied by a set of validator organizations that manage the Grant Program on behalf of the EWC Validators. The CFC will be responsible for managing the application process and administering grants.
If you have any questions or need support in submitting an application, do not hesitate to reach out to:
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You can also check out the FAQ section below.
Make sure to read the Grant Program Guidelines before submitting your application. These include further details and requirements that applicants must meet.
You can review the application guidelines in full here
The committee consists of individuals who know the funding priorities of the Energy Web ecosystem, and is responsible for evaluating grant applications and providing feedback on these.
In cases where a niche expert opinion is desirable, one of the committee members may request such a review.
The Energy Web Community Fund Grants Program offers different grant levels to help you best depending on your current stage. Here’s a summary of each along with requirements that applicants should consider, greater benefits entail greater accountability. Review all the requirements in the Guidelines.
Applications in this category should consider:
- Projects under this category should have a short implementation window, lasting no longer than 4 months.
- Will document the outcomes of the project and present them to the EWC community.
- Will be voted unanimously by the Community Fund Committee on behalf of the EWC Validators.
Applications in this category should consider:
- Projects under this category should have a medium implementation window, lasting no longer than 6 months.
- Applicants will write a concise report comprising a substantive and financial section.
- Applicants will document the outcomes of the project and present them to the EWC community.
- Applications will be voted unanimously by the Community Fund Committee on behalf of the EWC Validators.
Note: Projects under this category should have a long implementation window, lasting no longer than 1 year.
Applications in this category should consider:
- Applicants will write a concise report comprising a substantive and financial section.
- Applicants will document the outcomes of the project and present them to the EWC community.
- Applications will be voted by the whole EWC Validator Community.
- Applicants will need to be endorsed by one active EWC Validator.
📢 The process below is independent of the level. All payments are made in EWT.
- Please read our FAQs, category guidelines, announcement guidelines and Terms & Conditions to familiarize yourself with the subtleties of grants, applications and the program as a whole.
- Fork this repository.
- In the newly created fork, create a copy of the application template (
applications/application-template.md). If you're using the GitHub web interface, you will need to create a new file and copy the contents of the template inside the new one. Make sure you do not modify the template file directly. In the case of a maintenance application, use the maintenance template (maintenance template) instead. In the case of a research application, use the research template (research template) instead. - Name the new file after your project:
project_name.md. - Fill out the template with the details of your project. The more information you provide, the faster the review. Please refer to our Grant guidelines for most popular grant categories and make sure your deliverables present a similar same level of detail. To get an idea of what a strong application looks like, you can have a look at the following examples: 1, 2, 3, 4. Naturally, if you're only applying for a smaller grant that only consists of, say, UI work, you don't need to provide as much detail.
- Once you're done, create a pull request in our main Grants-Program repository. The pull request should only contain one new file—the Markdown file you created from the template.
- You will see a comment template that contains a checklist. You can leave it as is and tick the checkboxes once the pull request has been created. Please read through these items and check all of them.
- Sign off on the terms and conditions presented by the CLA assistant bot as a Contributor License Agreement. You might need to reload the pull request to see its comment.
- The committee can (and usually does) issue comments and request changes on the pull request.
- Clarifications and amendments made in the comments need to be included in the application. You may address feedback by directly modifying your application and leaving a comment once you're done. Generally, if you don't reply within 2 weeks, the application will be closed due to inactivity, but you're always free to reopen it as long as it hasn't been rejected.
- When all requested changes are addressed and the terms and conditions have been signed, someone will mark your application as
ready for reviewand share it internally with the rest of the committee. - The application will be accepted and merged as soon as it receives the required number of approvals (see levels), or closed after two weeks of inactivity. Unless specified otherwise, the day on which it is accepted will be considered the starting date of the project, and will be used to estimate delivery dates.
Milestones are to be delivered on the Grant Milestone Delivery repository following the process described therein.
- Accepted grant applications can be amended at any time. However, this necessitates a reevaluation by the committee and the same number of approvals as an application (according to the levels). If your application has been accepted and, during development, you find that your project significantly deviates from the original specification, please open a new pull request that modifies the existing application. This also applies in case of significant delays.
- If your delivery schedule significantly changes, please also open a pull request with an updated timeline.
- If your deliveries are significantly delayed and we cannot get a hold of you, we will terminate the grant (3 approvals required, regardless of level. If a member of the committee creates the termination PR, only 2 more approvals are required).
An initial formal review will be conducted to see if all formal requirements were included in the application. A qualitative evaluation will follow, applications will be thoroughly assessed and applicants will likely be required to provide additional information. The Evaluation Criteria are outlined in the Program Guidelines.
TODO: Merge the application template on Github with the one below. Afterwards delete this section.
Please use the standard template for applications provided here
Whether successful or not, the Community Fund Committee or the EWC Validators complete the application and will communicate their decision to the applicant after the review is complete. If an application is successful and approved, applicants will be entitled to receive 10% as an initial tranche of the grant.
As applicants complete and report their milestones, the remaining grant tranches will be liberated and delivered to the applicants.
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- My application was unsuccessful, can I apply again?
- Is it possible to require additional funding once the project is completed?
- What happens if I encounter obstacles that inhibit my ability to deliver the project?
If you think that we should support the development of certain tools or projects that aren't in the Energy Web Chain tech stack, feel free to submit a suggestion using the process described below. We are particularly interested in supporting projects that could be leveraged by other builders in our ecosystem.
Submit an idea:
If you have an idea for a project or would like to highlight an area in which you'd like to see teams build, but lack the technical background to create a detailed outline, you're welcome to open an issue. We will review your suggestion and, if necessary, will create an RFP based on it and reach out to teams able to build it.
Submit an RFP (Request for Proposals):
Ideas generally have better chances of being implemented if they're presented in a project outline format that can be picked up straight away by a team, so if you have a good concept of the milestones required to bring your project to life, you can follow the process below and directly submit an RFP:
- Fork this repository.
- In the newly created fork, create a copy of the suggestion template (
RFPs/suggestion-template.md) inside therfpsfolder. Make sure you create a new file and copy the contents of the template into the new one, and do not modify the template file directly. - Name the file after your idea:
project_name.md. - Fill out the template with the project details. Please include as many details as possible.
- Once you're done, create a pull request in our main Grants-Program repository. The pull request should only contain one new file—the Markdown file you created from the template.
- You will see the same template as for creating an application. Please replace it with this one.
- The RFP will be accepted and merged as soon as it receives three approvals from EW Community Fund Grants Committee members.
Maintenance Grants are yet another idea to get involved with the Polkadot community. If you are a user of an open-source library that has gone out of date, or you simply want to work on small new features/fix bugs in these repos, we can support your contributions via a grant. We are happy to award rolling grants on a monthly basis, as long as the work done within each time period is performed to a quality standard deemed satisfactory by the grant evaluators.
The process of applying for a Maintenance Grant is similar to what was already outlined above, but instead of defining very detailed deliverables for each milestone upfront, we will ask you to specify, where possible:
- The repo(s) that need maintenance
- Outline of why the specific project should continue being supported
- Broad overview of the features/bugs that need development contributions
- An assurance that the current project owners are willing to review/accept your contributions (a note here: if you're fully taking over the project, it would make more sense for the current owners to transfer the repository to your organisation. If you can't get in touch with them, you may, of course, work on a fork)
- Max budget per month
Then, at the end of each month, you will need to provide a comprehensive report of the work done, including the list of issues/bugs/pull requests worked on, time spent on each of these & finally the associated cost. It is quite likely that the time allocation & cost will vary from month to month, depending on the nature of the project you're contributing to. The delivery process and format should follow that of a typical milestone delivery, as will the processing of the payment.
Please note that:
- Maintenance grants, as the name suggests, are meant to allow teams/individuals to maintain a certain project, and not to continue its development or implement larger features. Please use the traditional application process for this purpose.
- The 1-month timeframe is just a guideline. If you find it unsuitable for you or the chosen project for any reason, feel free to adjust as seen fit and point this out in your application.
- Please bear in mind that the Grants Committee might be stricter in accepting maintainers when compared to typical grants, mostly selecting for applicants with proven experience in the relevant tech stacks.
- Maintenance Grants are only awarded for fixed timeframes. The requested duration needs to be specified in the application.
We give away 500 USD to each referral of a successful grant application by anyone having previously worked on a EW Community Fund grant. Energy Web Foundation do not qualify for the program, even if they previously worked on a grant.
In order to be eligible for the referral bonus, the application itself must contain the name of the GitHub account of the grantee as well as the payment address for the referral bonus (see the application template). Payment is made in EWT.
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