The following are frequently asked questions about the Knight Drupal Initiative. Note that some answers have changed after the 2008 program.
If you have additional questions, please post them in the comments.
Knight Drupal Initiative program questions
- When does the KDI start to accept proposals?
Applications for 2008 are now closed. The program will reopen in 2009. See http://groups.drupal.org/node/16348 for details.
- When is the final date to admit new proposals?
To be announced at DrupalCON DC, March 4-7 2009.
- Who may submit a proposal to the KDI?
Anyone may register for the site and submit a proposal.
- What are the requirements for submitting a proposal?
Any proposal that meets the goals of the program will be considered. For more, see the grant application tips page.
- What types of proposals are most likely to be approved?
Ideas that have a broad range of support from the Drupal community and which meet the goals of the program. See the grant application tips page for additional help.
- Must my proposal involve Drupal?
Yes. This is a Drupal-specific program, sponsored by Knight Foundation.
- I live outside the United States, can I apply?
Yes. There is no requirement for citizenship or residence in a particular country. However, there may be cases where funding may not be available in specific countries, due to U.S. law. If this issue comes up during your application process, we will address it as best we can.
- How much funding may I request?
Extremely small (less than $5,000 USD) or large (more than $100,000 USD) projects might are not practical for this application process. If you have a question about your specific proposal, you can always submit it and wait for public comment on its suitability.
- Can for-profit ventures submit proposals?
Yes. The KDI process is open to both individuals and organizations. You will be asked to list your affiliations and partners during the application process.
- Can students submit proposals?
Yes. Student proposals are acceptable, though there may be restrictions on applications by legal minors. Applicants under 18 years of age are encouraged to get co-sponsors for their proposals. Parents and legal guardians may be acceptable co-sponsors.
- My idea is a secret, must I apply publicly?
Yes. We are funding open-source projects that will be released for use by others under the GPL used by Drupal.org. Transparency is core to the project. If you are unwilling to share your ideas, then this program is not right for you.
- How long does the review process take?
To be announced at DrupalCON DC, March 4-7 2009.
- My proposal was rejected, why?
Check the public comments on your proposal. They should answer the question.
- My proposal was rejected. Should I apply again?
Repeat applications for the same proposal are strongly discouraged unless specific corrections have been requested and made. You may always submit a new proposal.
- Is there a limit to the number of proposals an individual or organization can make?
Not currently. Please do not make us consider one by abusing the system.
- When will the winners be announced?
To be announced at DrupalCON DC, March 4-7 2009.
Knight Foundation questions
- What is Knight Foundation?
Knight Foundation is a Miami-based non-profit organization. Knight Foundation's signature work is its Journalism Program. Since 1950, the foundation has invested more than $300 million to advance quality journalism and freedom of expression worldwide. Today, the program focuses on leading journalism excellence into the digital age. We define journalism excellence as the fair, accurate, contextual pursuit of truth.
Comments
When and what
When does this start to admit proposals?
Which is the final date to admit new proposals?
When will be the winner announced?
What are the requirements? Ex.: Drupal, news site, open source, communities-aware....
You can start submitting
You can start submitting proposals any time. There is no official end date, although I must presume that the Foundation could choose to cease running the project if they saw fit. Projects will be reviewed by the Foundation as they are reviewed and recommended by the Drupal community provided they meet the KDI goals. If you read through this group's home page, you will find links to those requirements.
There will be no one winner. Projects that make it through the community phase will be reviewed by the Foundation for funding. They will continue to fund projects that meet the KDI goals, are presented well, and seem to have a strong chance of follow through. In the end the Foundation will be the final arbiter.
types of proposals
May I submit a proposal about building a community website powered by Drupal's existing modules? It's not a improvement or development of any module, Install profile or user interface.
Hi Charles,
Hi Charles,
My feeling, reading the guidelines, is that your proposal wouldn't be competitive. KDI is looking to stimulate innovation that, for both the Foundation and Drupal communities, improves usability or provides reduced barriers to the use of Drupal. Building a site using core and contrib probably wouldn't fall within these boundries. Please see the goals of the Initiative here: http://groups.drupal.org/node/10459
Best,
Matthew
thanks, Matthew.
Matthew,
Thank you for your advice. Maybe I can submit my proposal to Knight News Challenge 2009. :)
Maybe
Those types of proposals didn't fare very well in News Challenge 2008, since the ideas tended to ne derivative. If you were building an install profile for Drupal that included this functionality, that might get some support.
--
http://ken.therickards.com/
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http://ken.therickards.com/
Is publicizing a proposal okay?
Hello,
I have a question re publicizing a proposal, and whether or not that is appropriate -- we have a proposal in and I have yet to blog about it, or post about it in relevant groups (and in this case, I see education, community, newspapers, distribution profiles, and rss/aggregagation as potentially relevant) because I did not want to create the appearance of being overly self-promotional.
So, what is appropriate in this case? What steps, if any, are okay for people submitting proposals to take in publicizing these proposals in order to get more feedback?
Thanks,
Bill
FunnyMonkey
Tools for Teachers
FunnyMonkey
International
I think projects from outside U.S. are no allowed if there is no american company involved, am I right?
Projects from outside the
Projects from outside the U.S. are very much allowable as long as 1) The applicant isn't on the US Department of State Denied Parties List and or 2) The applicant's country isn't on the Denied Parties List.
Quoting from
Quoting from http://www.knightfoundation.org/grants/what_we_are_not_looking_for.dot :
What we are not looking for:a.
b.
...
g. International programs and organizations, except U.S.-based organizations supporting a free press around the world
Any chances for a Catalan program for schools developed by a Catalan company?
Robert Garrigós
Professional site: garrigos.cat
Robert Garrigós
Professional site: garrigos.cat
My Understanding Is Yes
Hi Robert,
My understanding is yes. All the conversations I've been involved with seem to point to any individual or company can apply with a few exceptions.
"- I live outside the United States, can I apply?
Yes. There is no requirement for citizenship or residence in a particular country. However, there may be cases where funding may not be available in specific countries, due to U.S. law. If this issue comes up during your application process, we will address it as best we can."
Documents
Is there any legal documentation guidelines on this matter?
Do you have a proper guide to present the ideas or the proposals, an example of what is needed to acomplish the requirements?
Thanks Matthew,
Jose Should Be Able To Help
http://groups.drupal.org/user/16735
Jose represents the Knight Foundation directly and should be able to provide you with these kinds of specifics.
His page on the Foundation web site can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/59jrjl
Best,
Matthew.
OK
Jose Zamora confirmed that international applications are ok. The News CHallenge takes them as well. Knight does not want unsolicited international applications.
THe KDI is "soliciting" applications, so we're in a different set of rules.
--
http://ken.therickards.com/
--
http://ken.therickards.com/
More information about the process.
Once the Drupal community decides to recommend an application to Knight Foundation, we will work with the applicants on the following phases of the Knight process:
1.Applicants will have to submit an online letter of inquiry. The letter of inquiry can be found on the Knight Foundation website: www.knightfoundation.org by clicking on the apply tab. Once there, you will have to fill out a brief electronic form that asks you for the following information:
• Primary contact information
• Project title
• Purpose
• Requested amount
• Amount of total project
The following questions might be helpful when you are filling out the form.
1.Tell us about the opportunity presented by your idea/project, what it will transform, and what impact will it have?
2.How will it create lasting, visible change?
3.Tell us how you identified this opportunity and why the time is right for it.
4.What other partners or funders are involved in your idea/project?
5.How will you measure success?
6.How are you uniquely qualified to implement your idea/project?
7.Please describe organizational and financial capacity to implement your idea/project including any business plan.
8.How will your idea/project be sustained beyond Knight Foundation’s funding?
Once you finished the letter of inquiry, you will receive an e-mail notification with your inquiry confirmation number. Please send me an e-mail once you receive your confirmation number at: zamora@knightfoundation.org
After you submit your letter of inquiry or LOI, we will ask you to submit a full proposal. The full proposal allows you to give us more details about your project.
Once everything has been submitted, the journalism team at Knight Foundation will go through your proposal and make sure it meets all the criteria of the KDI. If it does, we will probably have a few conference calls to discuss and further develop the project. After these meetings/calls, if we want to proceed we will start working with the applicant on what we call the write-up, which is the binding document between the project developer and Knight. You could say it is our contract. In this document we will establish the payments you will receive to move your project forward and the deliverables that trigger those payments.
When we have this document ready and we all agree on its content, we will be ready to recommend projects requesting more than $250,000 to our Board of Trustees. We can present these projects to the Board in March, June, September and December. (Projects requesting less that $250,000 can be immediately processed, if the president of Knight Foundation agrees to fund the project.)
We partner both with individuals and organizations. We don’t have problems with partnering with individuals and organizations from other countries, but we might need to do more and different paperwork, or collaborate through a fiscal sponsor.
If you are an organization we will need the following documents from you:
• Organization’s current annual operating budget, including revenues and expenses
• Board of Director’s list
• Most recent IRS letter stating 501 c3 status
• Most recent audited financials
We will post more information regarding the information we would request from individuals, soon. And please remember that you are welcome to ask any other questions.
Thanks and Congratulations!
Thank you all!
I just wanted to thank Ken and the Drupal community for moving the Knight Drupal Initiative forward.
Thank you all for submitting your proposals. For sharing our excitement and for reviewing and recommending
the best projects.
I also want to congratulate Bill and Mark for moving to the next phase of this process. We are very excited to
receive this recommendation and we are looking forward to work with you on this phase of the application process.
Cheers,
jose.
Jose Zamora
Journalism Program Associate
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Can someone apply to both KDI and Knight News Challenge?
Hello all! I'm pretty interested in submitting an idea to either the KDI or to the knight News Challenge (or both). My question is this : is it possible to submit the same project to both programs, or should I choose between the two?
If I should choose where to apply, what could help taking the decision on where to ask for the actual support? Is it total budget, the project's nature in itself or something else?
I want to do what's best for my application's success and this I would like to make sure I'm actually applying at the right place.
To get an idea for my project, here is a first-draft presentation of the project : http://garage.newschallenge.org/projects/blogsurfrcom-get-recommended-bl...
I would love to have some advice as to know if I should ask for a grant here, or directly on the main News Challenge site, or even on both ??
thanks a lot,
Patchak
www.agenceinovae.com
Dual license?