Ruby New Zealand Community Grant Programme

Ruby New Zealand is excited to announce that we are making a funding pool available for community grants of up to $5,000 each in 2020.

Thanks to the mahi of volunteers and support from event sponsors over the last five years, we’ve found ourselves with a chunky surplus that we’re unlikely to need to underwrite in-person events in 2020. We’re keen to get some of that money back into the community, supporting people and the Ruby open source ecosystem.

Our goal with these grants is to support people in a time of recession, and to strengthen and extend the Ruby ecosystem and community in accordance with our charter and strategy.

The money could go towards almost anything, including your own time. We expect any outputs to be released with an open license and made available publicly.

Apply now through this form. Applications close on July 19, but early applications are encouraged and we are able to make payments early.

If you have any questions or would like a mentor to help you put together your application, get in touch with [email protected] or join the #grant-programme Slack channel on the Ruby NZ Slack.

Criteria for applications

We will expect:

  • Outputs produced, if any, to be released under an open license
  • Projects to link to Ruby New Zealand

We will give priority to:

  • People resident in Aotearoa New Zealand
  • Projects that use and/or promote Ruby

We will consider:

  • The potential impact of the grant for the person or group applying
  • The potential impact of the project for the Ruby community
  • The potential impact of the project for Aotearoa New Zealand

We will be guided by:

  • The strategic objectives of Ruby New Zealand:
    • We want Ruby to be well-respected and continue to be used by organisations in New Zealand.
    • We want to celebrate and support contributions to the open source Ruby ecosystem.
    • We want Ruby events to be regular, sustainable, and great.
    • We want to foster a welcoming, diverse, and thriving community.
  • Te Tiriti o Waitangi

How to apply

Applications open on June 18, 2020 and close at the end of 19 July.

The grants committee will aim to pay all successful applicants by July 31, but may be able to pay outstanding applicants sooner.

The total funding pool for 2020 is $10,000. If funds still remain in the pool after July 31, another round of applications may be held.

Apply now through this form.

Process

A grants subcommittee of the Ruby New Zealand committee will assess applications according to the criteria as they come in. Committee members who have a conflict of interest or close personal connection to a particular project will recuse themselves from assessing that application.

If your application is successful, we’ll work with you to publish some details of the project. We won’t publish your name or contact details without your permission. We will share some anonymous and aggregated details about the applications we receive, such as the number of applications.

Examples

Examples of projects we will fund:

  • Developing free course material for a Ruby course
  • Developing open source software using Ruby
  • Improving documentation for Ruby gems

Examples of projects we will not fund:

  • Closed-source development on a for-profit startup that uses Ruby
  • Developing open source software that is unrelated to Ruby