The PSF’s Grants Program is a key plank in our charitable mission to promote,
protect, and advance the Python programming language, and to support and
facilitate the growth of a diverse and international community of Python
programmers. After much research, input, and analysis, we are pleased to share
a PSF Grants Program 2022 & 2023 Transparency Report. The report includes
context, numbers, analysis, and a proposed path forward. It also includes a
supplemental analysis of several specific grant applications for which we were
requested to share more information.
We feel it is important to
acknowledge that Pythonistas, regional communities, and the broader community
are behind these statistics and commentary. Our community called for this
report to be created. While the report is focused on data and outcomes, we
also feel it is important to acknowledge in this introduction the concerns and
frustrations that brought us here, explained further in the ‘Setting context’
section below. We hope that this report, along with many other steps, helps to
remediate this.
This report reflects the outcome of thousands of
hours of PSF and volunteer efforts over 2022 and 2023 by the Grants Working
Group, the PSF Board, Python organizers, and PSF Staff worldwide. We truly
value this opportunity to share information on the last two years of
increasing grants to the community and to improve our Grants Program while
honoring the hard work of everyone involved in making the Program and our
mission possible.
This report was compiled by PSF Staff and
reviewed by the PSF Board and Grants Working Group. If you have questions,
comments, or feedback about the Grants Program or this report, please email
grants@pyfound.org.
Setting context
In December of 2023, we received an
open letter
from a coalition of organizers from the pan-African Python community asking
the PSF to address concerns and frustrations around our Grants Program. Before
receiving the letter, the PSF Board was aware of the Grant application that
spurred this letter and published a
transparency blog post
regarding the September and October 2023 Board votes concerning that
application. PSF Staff were aware of a need for a refresh of Grants Program
documentation and processes and worked on these updates time allowing. Since
receiving the letter in December, the PSF Board and Staff have:
-
Spent time listening during many discussions with the letter writers and
other community members.
-
Re-prioritized reviewing and rewriting Grant-related documentation and
processes, including revisiting the Grants Working Group Charter.
-
Established monthly
Grants Program Office Hours.
-
Contracted Carol Willing to perform a
DjangoCon Africa Grants Process Retrospective
which is now available on the PSF Blog.
For a high-level idea of the scope of our Grants Program, we are happy
to share:
-
The PSF distributed $393K in Grants during 2022 and $623K during 2023 for
the Grants Program and the PyCon US Travel Grants Program combined.
-
The Grants Program distributed $215K in Grants during 2022 and $393K during
2023.
-
Noting this Transparency Report is focused on the Grants Program only. If
you want to learn more about travel grants check out the
Travel Grants Process for PyCon US 2024 blog post
on the PyCon US blog.
The growth we saw from 2022 to 2023 is exciting to reflect on, and we’re
looking forward to what 2024 and beyond has in store for our Grants Program!
The numbers (in graph form)
Thanks to Tania Allard for helping improve the readability and
accessibility of the graphs provided in this report.
Our analysis
General Trends, Observations, & Notes
-
In 2022, Grants requests were not at “full capacity” as our community was
still recovering from the impact of COVID-19 on events, initiatives, and
collective burnout.
-
The increase in total grant applications we received from 2023 over 2022 is
encouraging. The program grew in 2023 as we began to return to in-person and
hybrid events, and we anticipate more applications coming in throughout 2024
and beyond.
Number of Total Grant Applications by Continent
-
In both 2022 & 2023, we received the most number of applications from
Africa and Europe, with South America not far behind.
Percentage of Grants Approved
-
The percentage of approved vs. declined applications is reasonable. Some
reasons applications were denied include:
- Unable to meet PSF Grants Program criteria
- Unclear benefit to funding the application
- Not Python related
- Spam
Percentage of Grant Applications by Continent
-
The percentages across continents are reasonably balanced, with fewer
applications from Asia, North America, and Oceania. Based on the
distribution of populations globally, the percentage of applications from
Asia is lower than expected. After receiving input on this directly from
PyCon organizers from Asia, we have come to understand that this is based on
an approach focused on sustainability. PyCon organizers in Asia are focused
on local sponsorship, fiscal responsibility, and independence. We absolutely
commend this approach, and at the same time, we urge organizers from Asia to
request Grant funding to supplement and enhance their events.
-
Additionally, note that we cannot award Grants to certain countries in Asia
due to OFAC and our status as a US-based 501c3 non-profit.
Approved & Declined Grant Applications by Continent
-
The number of declined applications from Africa shows an area for
improvement. Our conclusion is that our documentation is not clear enough on
the requirements for a grant to be awarded and that results in applications
that will not pass.
Dollar Amount Granted by Continent & Percentage of Money Granted by
Continent
-
This graph appears to show that Europe received disproportionate funding. On
further review, we believe this is because the grant applications we got
from Europe were for conferences. In contrast, a large number of the grant
applications from other regions were for meetups and workshops, including
many Django Girls events. Conferences typically cost significantly more than
meetups. Here’s a breakdown:
| Continent |
Applications Received in 2022 |
Granted in 2022 |
Applications Received in 2023 |
Granted in 2023 |
| Africa |
4 conferences, 7 meetups |
3 conferences, 7 meetups |
7 Conferences, 16 meetups |
5 conferences, 13 meetups |
| Europe |
12 conferences, 1 meetup |
11 conferences, 1 meetup |
15 conferences, 2 meetups |
15 conferences, 2 meetups |
- We
are encouraged to see the dollar amount granted to the Africa region rise
significantly between 2022 and 2023.
Average Amount Granted by
Continent
- Oceania is an outlier; the PSF received one application in 2022
and two in 2023 from Oceania. Many more grants were awarded to other regions,
which caused their average dollar amount to be lower. With that in mind, we
feel the average is reasonable. It means that we are receiving both large and
small grant applications!
- Africa and South America received less on
average than other regions. This is another example of the typical types of
grant requests we are receiving from different regions (workshops and meetups
vs. large conferences).
Grant Decision Times in Weeks by Number
& Percentage of Applications
- The majority of the average grant review
period is 4 weeks, which we feel is reasonable based on the process and load
of grant applications we receive.
- When we reviewed applications that took
longer than 4 weeks to decide, we found a couple of scenarios.
- One of the
main reasons for longer decision times is that applications are sometimes
submitted without crucial information, and there is significant time spent on
communications between applicants, PSF Staff, and the Grants Working Group.
Once requested, there are often delays in receiving the required information
back from applicants.
- The grant application was escalated to the Board
who meet on a monthly basis. Grants can be escalated to the Board either
because the amount requested is greater than $10,000 or because the Grants
Working Group cannot reach a consensus on a decision.
Grant Program
Average Days to Decide by Continent
- This graph also shows Oceania as an
outlier, and, again, it is skewed because we received only one application in
2022 and only two in 2023 applications from that region.
- In 2023,
applications from Asia took longer to reach decisions. When we looked into
this further, we found that the reasons for delays were that applications were
submitted without the required information and that significant time was spent
on communications between applicants, PSF Staff, and the Grants Working
Group.
- We are pleased to see that the average number of days is very
close across most regions.
Supplemental information on specific
grant requests
The open letter we received from the pan-African Python
community asked us to specifically review the process and share information
about several older grant applications from 2018, 2019, and 2022. We want to
share as much information as possible while noting that some of these requests
were managed by folks who have since moved on from the PSF and Grants Working
Group (GWG).
Introducing Python and related technologies to more
high schools in Uganda (2018)
- Grant request submitted January 2nd,
2018
- Requesting funding for four events in different schools for the 7-9
February, 12-14 February, 19-21 February, 26 Feb-1 March, of 2018.
- GWG
Chair forwarded request to the GWG January 4th
- GWG reviewed and needed
more information
- GWG Chair requested more information and forwarded that
to GWG on January 12th
- GWG Chair acknowledged to the GWG on February 7th
that the request was dropped
- No further comments added or actions
taken
PyLadies Fest in Kampala, Uganda (2019)
- Grant request
submitted February 21st, 2019
- Requesting funding for a five day event
starting on May 6th, 2019
- GWG Chair requested more information
- GWG
Chair forwarded request and additional information to the GWG on March 25th
- GWG
reviewed and needed more information
- GWG Chair requested more information
and forwarded a reply to GWG on April 26th saying the grant requestor was
working on solidifying the necessary information
- GWG Chair forwarded
additional information to the GWG on July 10th and advised the GWG the event
was rescheduled for September 16th
- No further comments added or actions
taken
PyLadies Kampala Open Source Workshop (2022)
- Grant
request submitted September 20, 2022
- Requesting funding for a one day
event for November 26th, 2022.
- GWG Chair requested more information,
which was provided on September 26th
- GWG Chair forwarded request to GWG
on October 20th
- GWG reviewed and no one objected
- GWG Chair moved the
request to a vote on October 31st
- Board Member contacted PSF Staff for an
update on November 2nd
- GWG approved the request and the GWG Chair sent
the Resolution to the grant requester on November 3rd
Our
comments
We do not have many insights into the administration of these
Grant requests outside of what exists on the GWG mailing list, including any
off list emails or in-person conversations that might have occurred. The PSF
Staff administering the GWG for the grant requests from 2018 and 2019 are no
longer on the team. The request from 2022, which was approved, was 2 days over
our goal of 6 week turnaround time for decisions on grant applications.
While our staff roster is currently small, it was even smaller in
2018 and 2019. We realized some time ago that as our grant requests increased
having a solo administrator for the GWG was tough- it was hard for our staff
to catch a break! When we put out a call for a Community Communications
Manager in June of 2023, we planned for whoever stepped into that role to be a
second administrator for the GWG to always have a stopgap at the ready. Our
current administration for the GWG now includes two PSF Staff members. This is
done purposefully to avoid situations where applications get dropped because a
critical piece of information comes just as someone is scheduled to be out of
the office or an emergency happens.
A path forward
Some of our
goals:
- Review, rewrite, and improve the Grants Working Group Charter,
including exploring various decision-making options and criteria.
- Review, rewrite, and improve documentation so that:
- Applicants can
be confident that their application meets the Grants Program criteria before
submitting.
- Reduce the need for follow-ups for additional information
that can cause delays.
- Continue to host the PSF Grants Program Office
Hours to increase ongoing transparency, support grant applicants, and
understand the gaps in our documentation.
- Analyze and deliberate on the
equity of designating grant funding allocated by region.
- Explore ways
that the PSF could regularly support the organization of large-scale events in
underserved regional communities.
- Examine and update our processes
regarding timeframes, including escalating grant applications after 4 weeks of
review to avoid 8-week review periods.
- We’d like to receive more
applications in the future by continuing to publicize the opportunity and
providing support during our Office Hours.
- Revisit the effectiveness and
sustainability of the Grants Program yearly.
A final note
We
hope this transparency report will help our community understand the state of
our Grants Program over the last two years. It has been instructive to the
Board, the Grants Working Group, and our staff who administer the program to
understand where our strengths and weaknesses lay. This report will inform our
efforts as we progress with improvements to the Grants Program. We also feel
this exercise will continue to be helpful year over year, to both monitor the
health of and analyze how our improvement efforts have impacted the success of
the Grants Program.
If you have any questions, comments, or
feedback, please email grants@pyfound.org.
