It's happening again! I'm giving out three $1,000 grants for whatever you want: heliumgrant.org. A few notes:
1) Last year, I felt pressure to turn this into a bigger program, and while flattering, it was actually kind of stressful to consider. After thinking about it, I realized that I get the most pleasure out of this as a simple, personal side project.
I want an easy way to re-allocate my income, but I'm not trying to "start a thing" (though someone else should!): I'm quite happy spending my finite brain time tackling the problems in my day job. So I've set up this program to be as self-serve as possible.
2) The per-grant size is smaller this year because I realized that $1K can still be a life-changing amount of money. Many applications last year requested amounts that were smaller than $5K. I'd rather reach more people with smaller grants.
3) I set these amounts based on what I feel I can reasonably allocate to this project in 2018. If I do this again next year, I may set different amounts for 2019, etc.
4) The grant application window was very small (2 weeks?) last year. This year, I'm experimenting with a rolling deadline so I can reach more people throughout the year. We'll see if that gets to be too overwhelming.
5) Random: I moved from AWS -> @Netlify and holy moly is Netlify easy to use. Perfect for static website needs!
6) Finally: last year, a bunch of people asked about sponsoring additional grants. I am happy to accept these! See here for details: heliumgrant.org/#sponsor
Update: Thanks to some *amazing* people who've sponsored, we now have NINE $1,000 grants to award! Apply for one here: heliumgrant.org
P.S. It's a strange and wonderful feeling to have strangers venmo you $1,000. A big reason why I enjoy this project is as an act of faith in the internet to do good things for each other ❤️
