The 2008Q2 grant round was by far the largest in recent years in both the quantity and quality of grant requests received by TPF. Characterisitically, TPF authorizes about US$5,000 of grant funding per quarter. In 2008Q2 we received nearly US$45,000 in grant requests.
We see this as both a positive thing and a problem. The positive part is that it shows some great activity in the Perl community and people recognizing that TPF can be a means through which Good Things in the Perl community can be supported. The problem is that this sudden burst in fund-requesting is not matched by our current financial state.
Put simply, TPF does not have the funds to grant anywhere near $45,000 in a single quarter. (The actual total of approved grants was slightly less than $40,000.) When the grant requests first came in I noticed how large and good this grant proposal pool was and the financial problem it might represent. So I started a discussion with the TPF executive to determine the best way we could be responsible to both the grant proposal submitors and to our finances. Our conclusion was:The list of grants and their dispositions that you see in Alberto's posting, http://news.perlfoundation.org/2008/06/2008q2_grants_results.html, reflects this strategy. These grants are listed in Alberto's posting in their rank ordering. My posting here is meant to give information on this situation to all members of the Perl community and to ask for your help to fund the grants we can't fund without your help.
If you would like to help us fund more of these grants, here's what you can do to help. Please visit our donation page, https://donate.perlfoundation.org/index.pl?node=Contribution%20Info. In the "For" drop-down, select "Perl Development Fund". In the comments box, please write "2008Q2 grants". For any funds received for the next month (until July 2/2008) we will dedicate them towards the rank-ordered list of grants. Any donations collected that for whatever reason we are not able to apply to the 2008Q2 rank-ordered grants we will allocate to the GC in future granting rounds.
One additional word -- of all the approved grants, only one (SMOP) concerned Perl 6. We are able to fund this out of the targeted Perl 6 donation we received 2 weeks ago from Ian Hague, http://news.perlfoundation.org/2008/05/tpf_receives_large_donation_in.html. The $10,000 budget does not include this grant. This way we can approve more funding to enable as many grants as possible.
Thank you for your support of these great grant proposals from Perl community members.
