How to Apply to the ENF Grant Framework

The EOS Network Foundation (ENF) is a hub for growth of the EOS Network, harnessing the power of decentralization as a force for providing key infrastructure support, including capital, technology, and operations to chart a coordinated future for EOS. And the EOS Network Foundation Grant Framework is a major pillar of financial support for the EOS ecosystem.

This article outlines the ENF Grant Framework guidelines of application process and approval processes.

Which projects can apply for direct grants?

There are three types of grants that the ENF considers.

New Proposal: These projects are initiated by community members and range from core chain enhancements, SDKs, tools, and applications.

Maintenance Grant: Maintenance grants are also initiated by the community to bring back support for a library, SDK or tool that has fallen out of maintenance.

RFP Response: From time to time, the ENF will propose a work request to the community in the form of an RFP. All community members, teams and companies are welcome to apply to the RFP.

In all cases, all projects must meet the following minimum requirements.

All code produced as part of a grant must be open-sourced, and it must also not rely on closed-source software for full functionality.

MIT Projects given priority, but Apache 2.0, GPLv3, or Unlicense are also acceptable.

Grants are not awarded for projects that have been the object of a successful token sale.

Grant deliverables must contribute to the EOS network first and foremost.

As a general rule, teams are asked to finish a grant before applying for another one.

Projects that actively encourage gambling, illicit trade, money laundering or criminal activities will be rejected.

All projects are required to create documentation that explains how their project works.

At a minimum, written documentation is required for funding.

How large of a grant can you receive?

Grant proposals are accepted in three levels, each having different amounts and acceptance criteria. Each level of grant comes with different requirements and benefits based on the size and scope of the initiative:

Individual / Small — $10,000
Team / Medium — Up to $50,000
Company / Large — Over $50,000

How to submit your grant application

The application process is completed through Github. You will need to fork the repository, change one of the forms, and submit it via a Pull Request as outlined in the steps below:

1. Sign in to GitHub：https://github.com/eosnetworkfoundation/grant-framework

2. Fork this repository：https://github.com/eosnetworkfoundation/grant-framework/fork

3. In your fork, create a copy of the Grant Application template (applications/application-template.md).

If you’re using the GitHub web interface, you will need to create a new file and copy the contents of the template inside the new one. Please make sure you do not modify the template file directly.

Name the new file after your project: myproject_name.md. Make sure to put it in the applications directory. Make sure your filename does not have any spaces in it and ends with the .md extension.

Within the GitHub Web interface navigate to: grant-framework—applications

Within this area of the GitHub web interface select: Create new file

Click the ”Copy new contents” in the Update application-template.md

Rename the new file with the correct format and copy the contents of the template inside the new one.

4. Fill out the new file with the details of your project.

Basic Information
Contact
Project Overview and Ecosystem Fit
Team
Development Status
Development Roadmap and Milestones
Future plans

The more information you provide, the faster the review. To get an idea of what a strong application looks like, you can have a look at the following examples: 1, 2.

5. Submit your grant application: When you fill out all the details of your project, create a Pull Request. Please note, the Pull Request should only contain one new file—the Markdown file you created from the template. Then, read through the page prompts and submit your application. When your application is complete, the ENF Committee or Evaluators will contact you for next steps.

What is the approval process?

1. Your grant application will first be reviewed by the Grant Committee.

The Grant Committee are senior members of the EOS community that know the priorities of the ecosystem and can make required initial funding decisions based upon the guidelines of the grant program. This committee is more business focused than technically focused, but they understand the technical nature of the desired future for the network.

Yves La Rose — CEO of ENF
Aaron Cox — Founder of Greymass
Dafeng Guo — Founder of EOS Asia and Strikingly
Fu Pan — Founder and CEO of TokenPocket
Peter Watt — Newdex Project Leader
Van Kai — Iconic Founder and Leader of the EOS Cannon Community
Wen Huaqiang — Veteran Developer and Initiator of CryptoKylin
Damian Byeon — Founder of WYNG, Former CCO of ITAM Games, and Founder of AcroEOS

The Grant Committee members will vote on whether the grant application is approved.

2. Once the Grant Committee has agreed that the application meets the needs of the EOS Network Community, it will be shared with the Grant Evaluators for technical evaluation.

The Grant Evaluators review applications approved by the Grant Committee for technical merit and achievability. They are more technical in nature and concerned with whether the proposal solves the problem optimally, is realizable in the specified time frame, and utilizes proper processes as required for the milestone achievement metrics.

Areg Hayrapetian — Director of Engineering at EOS Network Foundation
Matt Witherspoon — Principal Engineer at EOS Network Foundation
Bart Wyatt — CTO at EOS Network Foundation
Denis Carriere — CTO of EOS Nation

If both approved by the Grant Committee and the Grant Evaluators, your grant application is successful.

If rejected, the ENF Grant Framework staff will contact you with reasons as to why it did not meet the criteria. Then, you can modify and submit the grant application again.

About the Milestone Based Pay-out System

It is important to note that after the grant application is approved, the evaluator will monitor the project again to ensure that it is on a high-quality track by the deliverable milestone. In this way, evaluators have the right to pass or reject each deliverable milestone.

Payments are made in EOS at the time of milestone signoff, up to and including the final deliverable milestone. In other words, if a specific deliverable milestone is approved by the evaluator, you will successfully receive the grant for that stage. If rejected, the grant for that stage won’t be received.

Rejected milestones will be fed back to the developers for remediation, and then progress can continue again to receive payment or eventually stop the project.

The Framework For A Stronger Future

Supported by an all-star cast of EOS community members, business leaders, and developers, the EOS Network Foundation (ENF) launched a major new pillar of support for the EOS ecosystem, the EOS Network Foundation Grant Framework.

With access to an efficient, transparent, flexible and milestone-driven grant investment framework, the EOS Network will enter a new era of development opportunity previously unavailable to network participants.

EOS Network

The EOS Network is a 3rd generation blockchain platform powered by the EOS VM, a low-latency, highly performant, and extensible WebAssembly engine for deterministic execution of near feeless transactions; purpose-built for enabling optimal Web3 user and developer experiences. EOS is the flagship blockchain and financial center of the Antelope framework, serving as the driving force behind multi-chain collaboration and public goods funding for tools and infrastructure through the EOS Network Foundation (ENF).

EOS Network Foundation

The EOS Network Foundation (ENF) was forged through a vision for a prosperous and decentralized future. Through our key stakeholder engagement, community programs, ecosystem funding, and support of an open technology ecosystem, the ENF is transforming Web3. Founded in 2021, the ENF is the hub for EOS Network, a leading open source platform with a suite of stable frameworks, tools, and libraries for blockchain deployments. Together, we are bringing innovations that our community builds and are committed to a stronger future for all.

The only source for EOS news you'll ever need

Meet Our Founder Yves La Rose

Yves La Rose is the Executive Director and Founder of the EOS Network Foundation (ENF). A consummate consensus builder within the EOS ecosystem, he lives and breathes EOS, working to ensure the success of the network.

At a young age, Yves was attracted to technology. Through the experience of building his first computer and writing his first program at the age of seven, a lifelong interest in the potential of technology was born.

After completing studies in psychology at the University of Ottawa, Yves moved to Japan where he began his professional career in business and education.

With an entrepreneurial and inquisitive nature, six years passed, living and working while steeped in Japanese language and culture. At the same time, his early intrigue with technology was being further amplified by the revelations of Bitcoin. In 2010, he began mining Bitcoin on his laptop, and exploring the potential of decentralized networks.

Returning to Ottawa in 2011, Yves resumed his university education in pure sciences, focusing on perceptual and computational neuropsychology, and additional studies in behavioral economics.

In 2017, with additional years of business planning and analysis experience, Yves began seriously considering an endeavor in the emerging blockchain industry. Along with a handful of interested associates, he formed a blockchain book club, and having made a thorough survey of second and third generation blockchains, they began focusing their attention on the promising open source blockchain platform, EOSIO.

In February of 2018 Yves co-founded EOS Nation and led it to become the top rated block producer on the largest and most valuable network using EOSIO, the EOS Mainnet.

For over three years as founder and CEO of EOS Nation, Yves helped navigate the company through a great deal of operational uncertainty. Running network infrastructure, providing community outreach, exploring governance models, and contemplating approaches to public goods funding. His undivided attention was on EOS.

EOSIO was at the bleeding edge of public blockchain development, but it was also a global, decentralized network that was increasingly hobbled by distant and ambiguous leadership, misallocation of capital, and misalignment of incentives. Various teams sought to create a foundation, or a worker proposal system that could fund the development of public goods for the network, but these efforts stalled, and EOS was adrift. In May of 2021 Yves resigned as CEO of EOS Nation and began to contemplate a new path forward.

Throughout his tenure as CEO of EOS Nation, Yves had formed many good relationships across the EOS Network, among BP’s in the East, West & in the global South. Yves recognized that he was uniquely positioned to coalesce the stakeholders of the EOS Network around a foundation that would work on behalf of all EOS token holders to realize the true potential of EOS. With the assurance of support from a coalition of stakeholders, Yves founded the EOS Network Foundation.

Since founding the ENF, Yves has dedicated himself with singular focus, in the spirit of a modern day samurai, to work for the benefit of the EOS public blockchain and the many stakeholders of which it is composed. Yves continues to cultivate a team at the ENF that can serve the needs of the EOS community by lifting up and empowering the community itself.

Grounded in the lived experience of Eastern thought and traditions from his time living and studying in Japan and traveling throughout Asia, Yves brings a holistic approach to unifying the global EOS community through mutual respect, and a willingness to meet others wherever they are at.

How to Apply to the ENF Grant Framework