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 following list includes a non-exhaustive number of areas that applicants can explore:
- Education, research, and capacity building
- Developer Tools
- Smart contract monitoring and alerting tools
- Advanced APIs
- Analytic platforms (e.g. Dune, Messari, Chainalysis, etc.)
- Climate Change and sustainability
- Infrastructure
- Decentralized RPC network
- Data markets
- Oracles
- Wallets
- Bridges
- Indexing protocols (e.g. TheGraph)
- Other tools that increaee usability and user interaction with EW related projects and therefore push the EW goals.
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:
- cfgrants [AT] energyweb [DOT] org
You can also check out the FAQs
The committee consists of select EWC validators who volunteer and have been appointed by the validator community. The committee knows the funding priorities of the Energy Web ecosystem, and is responsible for evaluating grant applications and providing feedback in collaboration with all EWC validators. Contributing represenatives include:
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. - Name the new file after your project:
project_name.md. - Complete 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 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.
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.
The following table illustrates the evaluation system that will be used to evaluate applications.
| Item | Description | Percentage % |
|---|---|---|
| Benefits to the EWChain’s mission | - Applicants need to detail how they are accelerating real-world adoption of the Energy Web Chain and/or related open-source Energy Web software. - Applicants should mention how their project supports the global energy transition. - If applicable, applicants should mention how their proposed solution will use existing open-source tools (e.g. Switchboard). |
30 |
| Project's soundness | - Applicants must detail their timeline, milestones, deliverables, and acceptance criteria. Individual tasks and work packages throughout the timeline should be described. - Project plan implementation needs to be realistic. To evaluate and measure progress, applicants should set feasible key performance indicators aligned with the timelines and milestones. - Applicants should indicate the technology readiness level (TRL) of their project. - Applicants should describe the resources needed to implement the project. - The ability of the applicant to maintain the project beyond this program should be emphasized (e.g., maintenance costs, year-on-year breakdown as to required ongoing maintenance). If no maintenance costs, a clear risk register of obsoleteness to the project must be defined. - Applicants may provide their existing user base or an expected user base (including the rationale behind their expectation). |
30 |
| Sustainability | - Applicants should indicate how their project addresses climate change and/or sustainability. - Applicants can indicate the estimated reduced or avoided GHG emissions. |
15 |
| Reliability | - Applicants should provide the profile of the main staff members working on this project. - Applicants should provide examples of past projects. - Applicants may collect endorsement letters from members of the EWC community or other relevant organizations supporting their project. - Applicants may provide audits and reports that give insight into their reliability. |
15 |
| Completness | - Applicants should be exhaustive by answering and providing all the information that is required. - Applications need to be complete, readable, and structured. - Applications should be original and make sure the content is free of third-party rights. |
10 |
| - | Total | 100 |
Applicants should not limit themselves to a narrow range of ideas/topics for their applications. However, the following items should be considered by the applicants before submitting their applications:
- Open Source: While not all projects require code, they should be constructed in the spirit of sharing your knowledge with others (i.e., License-free, Copyright-free, IP-free, etc.). Non Open Source applications can be considered exceptionally but must include strong value to the EWF ecosystem.
- Public Good: There needs to be a direct link between your concept and the benefit it creates. Project proposals should outline how they benefit the EWF community.
- Execution Ability: Applicants shall demonstrate how your team has the abilities and potential to make your objectives a reality.
- Accountability: Applicants shall think carefully about the funds they are requiring and give a detailed plan for how the funds will help them achieve their objectives. Oriented towards benefitting the Energy Web community: Applications should relate to EWF’s mission, technology, and community.
- No conflict of interest: Applicants must avoid conflicts of interest between their own interests and the EWC community. Any potential conflict of interest must be disclosed.
- Complete, concise, and timely: Applications should be clear in communicating their project in a complete, precise, and concise manner. Applicants should also consider the deadlines defined in these guidelines.
Applications should take the Grant Program seriously. Applications that do not foster the EWF’s mission or that are not presented in a structured and clear manner shall be disqualified. The following list illustrates topics that would be automatically disqualified:
- Fraud: project proposals with no underlying utility, that promise high returns and value in exchange for resources (like ICO and NFT scams) will be disqualified.
- Venture financing substitutes: Grants are not a complete substitute for a round of funding. They are intended to support specific projects that benefit the EWF ecosystem as a whole.
- Free money: The EWC community is a strong believer in the possibilities of open-source, decentralized blockchain technology. Please don't take advantage of this.
TBD
- 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?
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Energy Web Website | Energy Web Twitter | Energy Web Medium | Energy Web Wiki | Energy Web Reddit | Energy Web YouTube |
Apache License 2.0 © Energy Web Community Fund Committee