micro-grants.md

µGrants

A micro grant, or µGrant, is a fixed-scope, fixed-compensation foundation-sponsored project. Compensation is staged upon completion of predefined milestones. Any entity, including an individual, is eligible to apply. A µGrant is awarded to the first applying entity that meets all of the grant's applicants' requirements which may include foundation approval and demonstration of key knowledge prerequisites.

Eligible Projects

A project is eligible to be structured as a µGrant if it meets the following criteria:

• The project directly or indirectly benefits Rocket or other RWF2 efforts.

  This includes work to improve Rocket and its libraries: rocket, rocket_db_pools, and rocket_ws, among others, Rocket's documentation including the rustdocs and the guide, Rocket's fixed dependencies such as cookie, tokio, futures, and serde, tooling such as rustc and cargo, and any web or related properties.

• The project has concrete milestones and deliverables.

  Progress must be measurable via milestones with concrete deliverables such that it is possible to unambiguously determine whether a deliverable realizes a milestone. As a result, open-ended research projects are unlikely to be candidates for a µGrant while code implementation projects make excellent candidates.

• The project is realizable within a definite time frame by qualified candidates.

  Given an entity meeting a set of skill or experience-based requirements, a project should be realizable within a definite time frame. The project must be self-contained, and the ability to make progress must be dependent only on the grantee and the foundation. For example, a project to "improve performance" without further qualification is a poor µGrant candidate as such a project has a potentially infinite time horizon. Similarly, a project that requires participation from entities outside of the foundation to make progress is a poor candidate as realizing the project can be arbitrarily stalled by those external entities.

The foundation is tasked with judging µGrant eligibility based on the above criteria.

Process and Proposals

A µGrant is always in one of the following states: proposed, accepted, active, closed, or complete.

stateDiagram-v2
    proposed : <em>proposed</em> | published for consideration
    accepted : <em>accepted</em> | open for applications
    active   : <em>active</em>   | being worked on
    closed   : <em>closed</em>   | not accepted
    complete : <em>complete</em> | successfully completed

    [*] --> proposed
    proposed --> approved
    proposed --> declined

    state approved {
        [*] --> accepted
        accepted --> active : applicant selected
        active --> complete
        active --> accepted : early termination
    }

    state declined {
        [*] --> closed
    }

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If a µGrant is proposed, it may be accepted, in which case the grant becomes open for applications. Once an applicant has been selected and assigned by the foundation, the grant is active. Once all milestones are met and all compensation remitted, the grant is completed. If a grant is not accepted, it is closed.

A µGrant may be proposed by any entity but can only be accepted by the foundation. An entity that proposes a grant is also eligible to apply for that grant once accepted, but no preference is given to the proposing entity.

Grants by the foundation itself are not required to be proposed.

Early Termination

If an accepted applicant indicates that they are unable to complete a milestone or cannot be reached after several attempts, the µGrant is re-accepted and becomes eligible for new applications. The re-accepted µGrant is composed of all incomplete milestones, and compensation is recalculated based on remaining tasks such that the sum of already issued compensation and remaining compensation is equal to the original compensation amount.

Structure

A micro-grant proposal must include:

• Summary

  A summary of the grant including the grant's motivation, compensation, goals, non-goals, milestones, compensation. This should be pithy and consist of at most a couple of paragraphs.

• Motivation

  A description of why this grant exists. For example, for changes to source code, a description of the functionality availed by the changes proposed.

• Applicant's Requirements

  A list of minimum requirements for an applicant to be considered. Each requirement must be objective such that both the foundation and prospective candidates can unambiguously decide whether a requirement is met.

• Goals & Non-Goals

  Two lists: one with goals (what we're trying to achieve) and one with non-goals (what we want to avoid). Each goal and non-goal should be expanded on as necessary.

• Details

  A complete description of the proposed project.

• Milestones & Deliverables

  A list of project milestones and the associated deliverables. Each milestone should be accompanied by a completion criteria: what needs to hold for a milestone to be considered complete.

• Compensation Schedule

  How the project's total compensation will be distributed based on milestone completion.

Applications

Applications are submitted in the open. Each application must include:

• Statement of Interest

  A brief statement explaining the applicant's interest in receiving the grant.

• Attestation of Met Requirements

  A point-by-point attestation that the application meets or exceeds all of the list requirements.

• Fulfillment Plan

  A summary of the applicant's proposed approach to fulfilling the grant's milestones.

Compensation Election

An accepted applicant may elect to donate the associated compensation to the RWF2. In this case, a donation receipt will be provided to the grantee upon completion of a compensated milestone.

Payouts

Immediately upon successful completion of a compensated milestone, a payout will be scheduled for the associated amount. Payments will be sent via PayPal or Transferwise. Payees are responsible for properly reporting the payout as necessary by their governing law.