We’ve got great news for content creators and innovators interested in new ways of doing business online. Grant for the Web—the $100 million initiative by Coil, Creative Commons, and Mozilla (previously discussed here) to fund projects that utilize and build upon the Web Monetization standard—has issued its first public call for proposals.

The Web Monetization ecosystem includes wallets, providers, and tools.  Grant for the Web was established to encourage, support, and promote ambitious projects that use and experiment with Web Monetization, and this CFP is a big step towards making the dream of better web business models a reality.

From Grant for the Web’s announcement:

With $100 million to distribute globally over five years, Grant for the Web will seed an online monetization and payment ecosystem to challenge the web’s most urgent issues: loss of privacy, centralization of power, and inequalities in online participation. … No longer can earning revenue online be tied to proprietary platforms, companies that abuse our privacy, and 20th century revenue models. We’re ready to start building what’s next.

There are two award tracks that applicants can submit their projects to: Creative Catalyst (content projects that use Web Monetization) and Foundational Technology (projects that innovate around the tech side of Web Monetization). A particularly exciting aspect of this CFP, as well as the entire Grant for the Web initiative, is that at least 50% of all grant dollars will go towards funding openly licensed projects.

The deadline for applications is Monday, June 22, 2020 at 4:00 p.m. (PST).

The program team is providing support to the community during the application period. For all the information you’ll need in order to prepare your submission, visit Grant for the Web’s detailed Call for Proposals page.