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We fund innovative projects that promote the use of open source in South Africa. The Shuttleworth Foundation is currently calling for proposals for innovative projects that will promote the awareness and adoption of open source software in South Africa, or those that will benefit the open source community in general. What projects do we fund?The Shuttleworth Foundation will consider open source requests that maximally achieve any of the following objectives: • The dissemination of information regarding open source software and associated philosophies • Increasing the accessibility of open source software and open content materials • The skilling of people in the use of open source software and tools How should you apply for funding? You need to send us a proposal. This proposal should be no longer than 10 pages and contain at least the following information: • An overview of your organisation • A brief description of your project (executive summary) • A detailed description of your project, including the following: o Planned objectives and deliverables o An implementation plan and time frames o A description of the project beneficiaries o A detailed budget o Plans for project sustainibility • Details of accomplishments to date, if your project is already in progress This proposal will allow us to start evaluating your request. If we require more information during our evaluation, we will contact you. What is the process that is followed? Your proposal goes through several stages. During stage 1 we would determine if your proposal meets the objectives we have outlined above. If it does not, the proposal is rejected immediately. If it does, we promote the proposal to stage 2. During stage 2 we thoroughly research the proposal, obtaining all the information we need to make a sound decision as to whether we want to fund the project or not. This stage involves a fair amount of interaction with the proposee, and we normally request that you present your project in person to the TSF team. During stage 3 and up, we make final decisions regarding your project and present it to our board of trustees if necessary. The entire process can take as little as a week (for immediate rejections), or as long as a month or two for successful proposals, depending on the amount of information that needs to be obtained while we evaluate your proposal. How should you send in your proposal? Our preferred method of communication is via email. you can send your proposal to . Alternatively, you can send your proposal via regular mail or fax, using the details provided on the contact page. Be sure to mark your proposal open source. Terms and conditions • Your project must involve open source and originate in South Africa • It must benefit a group / community and not an individual • Funding requests may not be less than R5,000 or more than R250,000 |