Discretionary Funding Program Launched by IIPC

By Jefferson Bailey, Internet Archive & IIPC Steering Committee

IIPC is excited to announce the launch of its Discretionary Funding Program (DFP) to support the collaborative activities of its members by providing funding to accelerate the preservation and accessibility of the web. Following the announcement to membership at the recent IIPC General Assembly in Zagreb, Croatia, the IIPC DFP aims to advance the development of tools, training, and practices that further the organization’s mission “to acquire, preserve and make accessible knowledge and information from the Internet for future generations everywhere, promoting global exchange and international relations.”

The inaugural DFP Call for Proposals will award funding according to an application process. Applications will be due on September 1, 2019 for one-year projects starting January 1, 2020 or July 1, 2020. The program will grant awards in three categories:

• Seed Grants ($0 to $10,000) fund smaller, individual efforts, help smaller projects/events scale up, or support smaller-scope projects.
• Development Grants ($10,000 to $25,000) fund efforts that require meaningful funding for event hosting, engineering, publications, project growth, etc.
• Program Grants ($25,000 to $50,000) fund larger initiatives, either to launch new initiatives or to increase the impact and expansion of proven work or technologies.

The IIPC has earmarked a significant portion of its reserve funds and of income from member dues to support the joint work of its members through this program. Applications will be reviewed by a team of IIPC Steering Committee members as well as representatives from the broader IIPC membership. Our hope is that the IIPC DFP serves as a catalyst to promote grassroots, member-driven innovation and collaboration across the IIPC membership.

Please visit the IIPC DFP page (http://netpreserve.org/projects/funding/) for an overview of the application process, links to the application form and a FAQ page, and other details and contact information. We encourage all IIPC members to apply for DFP funding and to coordinate with their peer member on brainstorming programs to advance the field of web archiving. The DFP team intends to administer the program with the utmost equity and transparency and encourages any members with questions not answered by online resources to post them on the dedicated IIPC Slack channel (#projects at http://iipc.slack.com) or via email projects[at]iipc.simplelists.com.