The $100 million initiative by Coil, Creative Commons, and Mozilla is funding technologies, content, and ideas that galvanize Web Monetization

On today’s web, advertising has become the dominant business model. It’s something Sir Tim Berners Lee and his colleagues at CERN probably couldn’t have imagined when they published the first website nearly three decades ago.

Content creators face a number of obstacles in this web environment — from all-powerful Big Tech platforms, to AI-powered recommendation engines that reward clicks, not quality.

Content consumers face obstacles, too. There’s a myriad of paywalls and invasive trackers to navigate and dodge, yet no simple way to reward creators.

To empower both individual creators and consumers online, Grant for the Web is launching its first-ever call for proposals (CFP). To learn more and apply, click here. The deadline for applications is Friday June 12, 2020 at noon PST.

Grant for the Web is a $100 million fund supporting innovation and open standards in Web Monetization. It is funded and led by Coil in collaboration with Mozilla and Creative Commons.

Says Ashley Boyd, Mozilla’s VP of Advocacy and Engagement: “The web works best when it’s decentralized — when independent creators and individual consumers have more agency online. Grant for the Web aims to do just this, by galvanizing alternative business models that reward creativity, not invasive data collection.”

Boyd adds: “We echo Grant for the Web’s call to action: It’s time for the business models of the web to evolve. Twenty-seven years ago today, CERN released the technology powering the then-nascent web into the public domain. It was a decision that allowed the web to thrive — and a decision we hope to build upon as we strive to restore the web’s original promise.”

This CFP will fund projects that help build a more robust ecosystem of Web Monetized content, users, tools, and infrastructure. There are two award tracks:

  • Foundational Technology | Supporting technology, tools, and infrastructure that innovate around the proposed Web Monetization standard and the Interledger Protocol.
  • Creative Catalyst | Supporting experiments in the creation, distribution, and discoverability of content monetized using existing Web Monetization technology.

Grant amounts come in three levels:

  • Spark Level | $5,000-$15,000 | Spark Level grants will be awarded for research and planning, event participation, community engagement, documentation, and smaller-scale content monetization experiments.
  • Mid Level | $15,000-$50,000 | Mid Level grants will be awarded for the design, prototyping, and building of plugins, APIs, and other monetization tools, research and development including whitepapers and academic research, larger-scale content creation, and community activations.
  • Flagship Level | $50,000-$100,000 | Flagship Level grants will be awarded for the operational and technology costs related to comprehensive tooling and platform innovation, and large-scale community activations.

Learn more at http://grantfortheweb.org/apply.