Open source grants
31 open open source grants, each checked against the organizer's official page. 3 close in the next 7 days and 12 take applications on a rolling basis.
A grant pays for work without buying a share of your company. The money comes from foundations, companies, public agencies and protocol treasuries, and most of it goes to a project, a research question or a piece of open source.
Money for people who write and maintain open source: foundation grants, security funds, maintainer stipends and paid contribution programs.
Ruby Association Grant 2026
The Ruby Association gives JPY750,000 grants to up to five projects that improve Ruby, its libraries and its tools. Proposals are due October 5, 2026.
Cesium Ecosystem Grants 2026
Cesium is taking Ecosystem Grant applications of $5,000 to $50,000 for open 3D geospatial work. This cycle closes October 9, 2026.
CollectionBuilder Community Developers Program 2026
CollectionBuilder pays $3,500 to $5,000 for one open source addition. People based in the United States can propose until 9 October 2026.
CHARTED Fund 2: Community Activities
CHARTED pays UK research technical professionals up to £5,000 for community events and training. The next deadline is 15 October 2026.
Open Technology Fund Surge and Sustain Fund 2026
The Open Technology Fund pays monthly server costs for large open source circumvention tools. Concept notes are due on 15 October 2026.
Foresight Institute AI for Science and Safety Nodes: request for proposals 2026
Foresight Institute offers grants of $30,000 to $100,000, compute and office space for open AI for science and safety projects. Proposals are due October 31, 2026.
Alpha-Omega open source security grants: October 2026 round
Alpha-Omega funds open source projects with typically $50,000 to $100,000 for security work. The next intake form is open from October 1 to October 31, 2026.
ARIA Scaling Trust grants
ARIA Scaling Trust offers grants from £100,000 to £3,000,000 for open source agent security tools. Proposals for this cycle are due 31 October 2026.
NLnet Foundation: open call for proposals with a November 3 deadline
NLnet funds open source and open hardware projects with first grants between 5,000 and 50,000 euro. The current call closes on November 3, 2026 at noon CET.
Open Science NL Open Science Infrastructure programme: second round 2026
Open Science NL will fund up to 1.7 million euros per proposal to improve digital infrastructure for open science. Letters of intent are due November 3, 2026.
Amazon Security call for proposals: Fall 2026
Amazon funds AI security research with gifts of no more than $80,000 on average, plus AWS credits. Proposals close 4 November 2026.
FreeCAD Grant Program 2026: Q4 round
Small grants from the FreeCAD Project Association for work on FreeCAD and its ecosystem. The last 2026 round closes on November 15, 2026, from a 40,000 EUR yearly budget.
Prototype Fund class 03: applications open from October 2026
Prototype Fund class 03 funds open source prototypes with up to 95.000 € for teams. Applications run from 1 October to 30 November 2026.
Open Science NL Mobility and Development Programme 2026
Open Science NL funds study visits abroad for Dutch open science professionals, up to €25,000. Apply in ISAAC until 3 December 2026.
Open Science NL Open Science Meetings 2026
Open Science NL pays up to €15,000 for meetings run by open science communities in the Netherlands. The call closes on 10 December 2026.
NSF PESOSE March 2027 deadline
NSF PESOSE funds US teams to plan, grow, or secure open source ecosystems, with awards up to $1,500,000. The next deadline is March 2, 2027.
goose grant program
The goose grant program pays $100,000 for a 12 month open source project that builds on the goose AI agent. Proposals are reviewed on a rolling basis.
TheDAO Security Fund ETHSecurity Initiatives Round Two 2026
TheDAO Security Fund pays for Ethereum security work, with initiatives of $20,000 to $600,000. Round Two opened September 15, 2026 and ends in January 2027.
Open Technology Fund Internet Freedom Fund
The Open Technology Fund gives $10,000 to $900,000 for internet freedom tools and research. Concept notes are accepted on a rolling basis.
Btrust Developer Grants for Bitcoin open source
Btrust pays Bitcoin open source developers in BTC to work full time, with six month starter grants and yearly long term grants. Applications are open all year.
FLOSS/fund grants for free and open source projects
FLOSS/fund from Zerodha gives open source projects anywhere up to $100,000 a year. Applications are open all year and reviewed every quarter.
OpenSats RED token reimbursement for Bitcoin red teams
OpenSats RED grants pay back LLM token and compute costs for people red teaming Bitcoin open source software. Always open, with fast review.
XRPL Glow grants
XRPL Glow pays retroactive grants for open source work already shipped on the XRP Ledger. Wave 1 is open.
FOSS United grants for open source projects in India
FOSS United gives grants of up to ₹15 lakh to open source projects and maintainers in India. Applications are open all year.
OpenAI Codex for Open Source programme
OpenAI gives open source maintainers six months of ChatGPT Pro with Codex and up to $25,000 in API credits from a $1 million fund. Applications are reviewed all year.
Hugging Face community GPU grants
Hugging Face covers the GPU hardware cost of selected Spaces. Maintainers apply from the hardware settings of their own Space and there is no deadline.
Sentient Foundation Open Source AGI Grant Programme
Sentient Foundation has committed $42 million in rolling grants and investments for people building open AI. No deadline.
Sovereign Tech Fund
Rolling funding from the Sovereign Tech Agency for open source base technologies such as libraries, package managers and protocols. Projects start at €50,000.
GitHub Secure Open Source Fund
$10,000 and three weeks of security training for maintainers of widely used open source projects. Applications are open on a rolling basis for every program session.
Zcash Coinholder Directed Retroactive Grants: Q4 2026 round
The Zcash Coinholder Directed Retroactive Grants program pays for completed work on Zcash. The Q4 2026 call for proposals runs from 30 October to 13 November 2026.
Gem Fellowship 2027 for Ruby open source maintainers
The Gem Fellowship 2027 gives Ruby open source maintainers grants of $2,500 to $25,000. Applications are taken during December 2026.
Questions
How many open source grants are open right now?
31 as of 5 October 2026. 3 close in the next 7 days and 12 take applications on a rolling basis.
Which open source grants close soonest?
Ruby Association Grant 2026 from Ruby Association closes on 5 October 2026. Cesium Ecosystem Grants 2026 from Cesium closes on 9 October 2026. CollectionBuilder Community Developers Program 2026 from CollectionBuilder closes on 9 October 2026.
Can I apply from any country?
22 of the 31 accept applicants worldwide. The others are limited to a region or a country, and each entry says which.
Do any of them take equity?
None of them take equity. They pay as grants, prizes, stipends or credits.
How is this list checked?
Every entry is written from the organizer's official page and links to it. Programs with a rolling deadline are checked again for closure, and an entry moves to the archive on the day it closes.