Takeaways from the first Grant for the Web Community Call
Three weeks ago the first call for proposals was launched by the Grant for the Web organizers and therefore everyone interested in this program had the chance to check out all the details around the application requirements and the whole submission process. If you haven't yet, Ken's summary on that matter will be a great starting point for you.
As with everything, with all that new information also new questions came up among many people looking to apply for the Grant for the Web.
Fortunately, the program team has reacted perfectly to this situation by setting up a community call, which occurred yesterday for the first time.
During the call, Erika Drushka and Chris Lawrence, Program Officers at the Grant for the Web, shared some great advice and answered several questions by attendees.
My Takeaways from the Call
To keep it nice and short, I'm gonna share the key points that answered some of my open questions, as well as the general advice given that I found to be very helpful.
This is the first call for proposals, therefore the program specifics are purposely formulated broadly, as they are open to all kinds of new ideas. Everyone knows that many experiments will not succeed in the end, but now is the time to start experimenting. No need to be shy with your idea! π©βπ¬
They expect to receive many applications and competition to be strong. Chris estimated that they expect to receive somewhere between 300-500 applications, but also he can just guess at this point. Good effort to draft a great application is definitely required! π
Don't submit your application too fast. There are no bonus points given for submitting earlier than others. Take enough time to draft and refine your application. π
The budget plan might be the most important part of any application and often the first thing a judge would look at. It must be realistic and it must be visible that the applicant has put thoughts into the amount of money asked for. A greatly written application is worth nothing when the budget plan is flawed. π°
An important part of the budget is your own time investment and it should be put into your budget plan. It will require some research based on many individual factors and thought to come up with a solid estimation for how long you will work on each step of the project and how much money support that is worth. β±οΈ
Consider the stated time frame of six months when planning your project and budget plan. Even if you might have a very big project in mind for a much longer term (if it works out), break it down into a manageable piece to create within those six months. It might be possible to fund the next step of the project then through another grant in the future. π£
Have someone else check your application for logic and also grammatical errors. While the program is very inclusive and tolerant towards non-native speakers, judges will independently evaluate every application and therefore details will matter. You'll want to make a good first impression. β¨
Attach any applicable resources that you might have already when it comes to experience with web monetization that could help you bring across your point of why you want to work on a project to dive into this matter. π
This is only the first of many calls for proposals. There will be more chances to apply. π
This information has helped me a lot and I hope it might help you too to draft your application.
More Chances to Ask Questions
If you have more questions to ask, there will be more chances to get an answer to them.
Community Calls
There will be one more community call to introduce this edition of the call for proposals, which will also have some time for questions.
π June 4 | 5:00pm (US Pacific Time)
Office Hours
The office hour calls will be dedicated specifically for questions for interested applicants, so make sure to save those dates in your calendar.
π May 28 | 8:00am (US Pacific Time)
π June 11 | 5:00pm (US Pacific Time)
You can find all details about how to join those in this GftW blog post.
Watch the PLAN Interview!
I would also highly recommend you to watch the latest episode of the PLAN live stream, in which our heroes Patty, Lauren, Adam, and Nick are having a serious word with Chris Lawrence.
They are asking some great questions and Chris is sharing some great advice on how to approach the application and how to think about certain things while drafting your application.
You can watch the one hour long interview on Cinnamon. πΊ
Well done guys, exciting times ahead!
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A Coil Workaround β Adding an Upvote Button to an External Website
I have been publishing articles on my blog for a while now and I am very happy with using Coil to give this new kind of web monetization a try.
The only thing that is definitely not ideal at the moment is that there is no way for people to directly upvote my articles on Coil, once they clicked through to my website.
A reader of one of my articles and fellow Coil blogger @mirrae pointed that out again in a comment under my latest Coil income report article:
So I was really thinking for a while if I could come up with some way to connect my articles a bit closer with the upvote function on the Coil platform.
The result of my efforts is this small button, which I will now include at the end of all my new articles on my blog:
It's really just a simple workaround for a more complicated problem. But I had a lot of fun thinking about a solution and coming up with this small quick fix.
In the following, you can read how I made it and what it actually does.
How-to Guide
Step 1 β Create Button Vector Files
I wanted to make the button quickly recognizable for any Coil user. Therefore, I wanted to keep them in the same design as the upvote button here on the Coil platform.
I think that worked out quite well:
Feel free to use them!
Step 2 β Create the Button Module
I actually used an image module from the Divi theme to make the button work. In the settings I can enable the option to pick one image for the normal state and one image when the mouse is hovering over the module. That actually makes the arrow turn blue on hover β it simply replaces the whole image.
Depending on what theme you use for WordPress, the process might be different. But changing an image when hovering with the mouse, should not be too difficult to do on any theme and with some small research and the necessary CSS snippets.
Step 3 β Set the Button Link to Point to my Coil Profile
Unfortunately, I couldn't find a better option for that step. The only way for now is sending people back to my profile, where they can see all of my posts.
But since the latest post is always shown at the top, that is a sufficient solution for now for me.
It's just a small experiment anyway and hopefully we will have a better solution in the future.
I have set the button to be only visible to active Coil subscribers, as there is no real point in showing it to someone else. Coil subscribers can find the fourth and last step to achieve that below. π
If you are curious and want to see the button in action, just check out the latest article on my blog, where I implemented it for the first time.
When you refresh while seeing the button, you will notice that it takes a short moment to appear β that's the time it takes for the monetization process to start and for the script to detect it.
And that's it for this little Coil functionality workaround. π
Until next time! π
FYI β I'm tracking my income with Coil through my website each month in my monthly Coil income reports. If you're interested in giving Coil a try, this might be interesting for you to follow. π
π» Check out my Blog
π Follow me on Coil
πΊ See my videos on Cinnamon
πΊ Subscribe on YouTube
π¦ Reach out on Twitter
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