Celo Foundation Grants Program
The Celo Foundation (“Foundation”) Grants Program is an open program that supports projects that are committed to Celo’s mission of building a financial system that creates the conditions for prosperity for all. The Foundation believes that by working together we can collectively help the world prosper. [1]
Overview
Launch Date: early 2020 ... the oldest post I could find on their blog mentioning the program is here.
Total Funding Allocated: not disclosed
Total Funds Distributed to Date (if available): not disclosed
What Asset(s) are the funds paid out with (native token versus $USD, for example): $CELO but denominated in USD (per information here)
Where funding is tracked: not public but you can find mention of grants awarded on their blog. The title of the blog posts with this information contain the word waves (you can search on Medium)
Principles
The Foundation provides entrepreneurs capital and mentorship to projects that are accelerating technical development and expanding the Celo ecosystem. It is an open program where anyone is encouraged to apply. The Celo Foundation Grants program has 4 guiding principles:
- Transparency: The Celo community has visibility into the evaluation process and decision-making framework. Decisions are communicated to the applicants. Most applicants will have the opportunity to schedule office hours to understand how they might improve their application, when possible. All Foundation Grant awards are published to the community.
- Fairness: Members of the Celo Alliance and non-members’ applications will be evaluated similarly. Celo Alliance members’ applications will not be given preferential treatment.
- Openness: The Foundation prefers open-source projects that benefit the community.
- Growth: The grant program is intended to encourage development in the Celo ecosystem. It is not a source of venture capital funding. [2]
Area(s) of Focus
- Technical & Research Grants: Projects that foster innovation and development of the Celo Platform and Celo Reference Wallet
- Ecosystem Support: Projects that lower barriers to entry to help make Celo as accessible as possible for developers and end-users of subsequent applications.
- Education & Community: Projects that educate and expand the Celo community all over the world.
- Social Impact: Projects that increase access, opportunity, and impact of Celo.[3]
Governance
Grant applications submitted over the notion page are evaluated on a monthly rolling basis. For example: once an application is received by the 15th of a given month, review and decision is shared with the applicant in the same month itself. If an application is submitted after the 15th, the decision will be communicated by the end of the following month.
The main principles for evaluating a grant application are:
- Mission Alignment - How do you support the Celo mission?
- Market Opportunity - How does your proposal increase the reach of Celo and assets?
- Technical Innovation - How does your product contribute to the tech stack in the Celo ecosystem?
- Ability to execute - What type of success / traction have you demonstrated to date?
How do we make decisions?
- The Celo Foundation Board - gives feedback and guidance on a quarterly basis on the focus areas of the Grants Program.
- Grant Committee - an external council of advisors who are mission aligned and help capture the trends and direction for the projects, informing the Request for Proposals. The Grant Committee meets on a monthly basis to approve the grants.
- Sub-committees - consists of subject matter experts from within the community who help review the application.
- Committee stewards - portfolio leads of the subcommittees who work closely with the Grants team to review and recommend grant applications.[4]
How to Apply
Information on how to apply can be found here on their website