Continued from the previous post.

From the comments to Alberto's post:

You missed as a point "People don't know that the grants exist" and "People don't think their ideas/plans are appropriate for a grant". TPF should probably advertise them more.

Let's talk about the marketing aspect.

"People don't know that the grants exist"

To improve the situation that "People don't know that the grants exist", we did the followings in the past few months:

Changed the rule to make it more attractive for prospective grantees (grant limit, grant cycle).

Reminded each Grants Committee member to advertise the program more, which became: 1) talk given at a local Perl mongers meeting 2) more appearance on social network sites 3) more appearance in personal blog and mailing list

Started this blog to make the grant program known by blogs.perl.org readers and search engine crawlers

Among various activities, our new committee member, Daisuke Maki, is has started marketing activities in Japan. He started blogging on the grants program in Japanese and we just got an approved application from Japan for the first time in the Grants Committee history.

It is not only Daisuke; it is crucial that we have global presence so we can reach out to the local Perl community for the marketing purpose. Currently the Committee has presence in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, India and Japan.

"People don't think their ideas/plans are appropriate for a grant"

While we continue marketing as above, the next step is to reach out to such people:

I do not believe this will be a wide benefit to the perl community, and as such it doesn't feel right to ask for funding.

So some people have some ideas but they hesitate to submit proposal because they do not know if it is great enough.

The answer was posted by castaway in the same comments section:

You'll never know if your idea/plan was good enough for a grant if you don't apply! Don't assume it isnt, ask!

Just to add, application is a POD formatted text which explains what, why, how, when and and who.

If you feel the bar to submit an application is still too high, try giving the idea to a smaller audience. Blog your proposal. Get a 10-minute slot at your local Perl mongers meeting. Share your ideas and solicit feedback. If people like it, you are ready to submit an application. If very few people are interested in your ideas, it would be better to modify your approach.

Want to help?

Lastly, let us know if you are willing to help the Grants Committee's marketing. You can give us ideas or you could speak about the program in one of your .pm meetings. You don't need to be a part of the committee to help our marketing effort. If you want to be a one-time "ambassador", get in touch with me at tpf-grants-secretary at perl-foundation.org.