Small Development Grants - NumFOCUS

Small Development Grants - NumFOCUS
Small Development Grants
The Small Development Grants program is a NumFOCUS microgrant program benefitting our Sponsored and Affiliated projects.
The program helps projects fund important work that they might not otherwise be able to do like improving usability, growing project communities, and speeding up the time to major releases.
Below you can view a list of work that has been funded under the program
Interested in supporting Small Development Grants?
For Individuals
For Corporate Sponsors
Small Development Grants Committee
The Small Development Grants Committee is a volunteer committee established by the NumFOCUS Board of Directors to help facilitate the Small Development Grants program. You can read more about the committee’s role and responsibilities in the
charter
The Members of the 2025 Committee:
David Pérez-Suárez, Co-chair
Kalyan Prasad
Magdalena Wiercioch
Robert Coup
Lilith Hafner
Nizam Uddin Syed
Smit Lunagariya
Past Committee Members :
Larry Gray
Tim Hoffmann
Alejandro Oliva
Bradly Alicea
Marcel Haas
Paige Bailey
Luke Canavan
How to Join
If you are interested in serving on the committee you should
to the NumFOCUS newsletter. Requests for applications are sent out each January via the newsletter.
2025 Funding Rounds
2025 Funding Rounds
Round 1
Call for Proposals Announcement: May 02
Proposal Submission Deadline: June 6
Committee Selection Deadline: Jun 20
Notification to Applicants Deadline: Jul 11
Round 2
Call for Proposals Announcement: Sept. 19
Proposal Submission Deadline: Oct. 17
Committee Selection Deadline: Oct. 31
Notification to Applicants Deadline: Nov. 21
Eligibility
Any NumFOCUS Fiscally Sponsored or Affiliated project is eligible to submit 1 proposal per grant cycle. Each project may receive a maximum of 2 grants per calendar year.
If a project would like to solicit proposals from its internal community, leaders must organize their own review process to select the proposal submitted on behalf of the project. Proposals may be submitted by residents of any country and work can be performed at any university, institution, or company worldwide (U.S. export laws and sanctions permitting).
Projects will be notified via the NumFOCUS internal project mailing lists that the call for proposals has opened. Applicants will be notified of proposal acceptance or rejection via the email address provided on the application on or before the notification deadline.
Usage of Funds
Grant funds can be used for:
Code development
Documentation
Website updates
Workshops and sprints
Educational, sustainability, and diversity initiatives
Any work that directly benefits the project and/or its community
Travel for community members & developers to project events and conferences
Proposed work must be achievable within one year.
Proposal Guidelines
Applications should be submitted via the
Small Development Grants Proposal Submission GitHub repository
Available Funding
Available program funding is determined and approved annually by the NumFOCUS Board of Directors. A portion of the total funding may be allocated for Off-cycle Grants with the remainder divided equally between the three grant cycles. Up to $10,000 can be awarded for each proposal.
Objectives and Deliverables
Each proposal should include clear and concise objectives and deliverables. Whenever possible specific timelines should be included. The impact of the proposed work on the project and/or overall scientific computing community should be clearly illustrated.
Budget
Each proposal must include a detailed budget justification stating how grant funding will be allocated. As applicable, the following should be included:
Hourly rates and number of work hours for contractors
Equipment and/or supply costs if applicable
Cost of any services
Travel costs
Proposal Length
Suggested guidelines for word count can be found in the proposal application. Enough detail should be provided to give reviewers a clear understanding of the proposal’s objective but should not be so lengthy that it puts an undue burden on the evaluation process.
Proposal Evaluation Guidelines
Proposals will be evaluated and ranked from most impactful to least impactful. If possible, the maximum allocation of funding for each round will be awarded.
Preference should be given to projects that did not receive funding in previous rounds.
Preference should be given to proposals that have broader effects i.e. benefit the scientific computing community as a whole.
Projects may resubmit the same proposal if it was not funded or was partially funded in a previous round and resubmissions are given preference.
Funding Distribution
Funding will be dispersed by the finance team directly following the notification to applicants according to established financial procedures and guidelines:
For fiscally sponsored projects only
, NumFOCUS will deposit the grant funding directly into the project’s account. The project will then submit invoices through the normal channels (i.e. Open Collective) to pay for grant expenses.
Funding dispersement requests must be submitted  through the applicable project’s financial request page.  Links to request pages
can be found here
Anyone invoicing for work done in excess of $600.00 for a ALL projects must sign an independent contractor agreement with NumFOCUS before billing. Contracts can be initiated by submitting via our
independent contractor registration form
NumFOCUS can award the money as a grant or subcontract to a student or postdoc at a university as required (depending on the rules of the university).
NumFOCUS can directly pay for expenses associated with the grant as required (e.g. booking flights on behalf of project leaders to attend a workshop, per diems for travel days)
Reporting
Projects to whom grants have been awarded will be required to submit a report to NumFOCUS describing the work that was performed under the grant and detailing any grant deliverables and outcomes. Reports will be due no later than three months after the close of the one-year period following the award of funds. Reports must be submitted on the
Small Development Grants Report Back Form
Off-Cycle Grants
Off-cycle Grants may be awarded to projects outside the established grant cycles if:
There is a time-sensitive aspect to the proposal which precludes it from being submitted and/or awarded during one of the established grant cycles
The project has not already received the maximum amount of grant funding allowed per project within the calendar year
Previously Funded Programs
Project
Proposal Title
Amount
Year
Round
mlpack
Improving mlpack's visibility via application examples, videos, and documentation
$10,000.00
2024
PyTables
HDF5 direct chunking support for PyTables
$10,000.00
2024
SciML
Collocation Methods for Boundary Value Differential-Algebraic Equations
$8,000.00
2024
Colour
Implement support for Common Look-Up Table Format (CLF) to facilitate the creation and exchange of colour transformations
$9,000.00
2024
Freemocap
Multi-Person Tracking in FreeMoCap
$5,000.00
2024
Magpylib
Computing Force and Torque with Magpylib
$10,000.00
2024
PyMC
Development of Specialized Extensions in PyMC
$10,000.00
2024
python-graphblas
An Animated Video Series Introduction to the GraphBLAS
$10,000.00
2024
Spyder
Usability and accessibility improvements to the QtConsole project
$8,610.00
2024
ArviZ
Dashboard-assisted exploratory analysis of Bayesian models
$10,000.00
2023
Bokeh
Empowering Aspiring Data Scientists and Encouraging Open Source Contribution in Nigeria through Bokeh Data Visualization Workshops
$7,500.00
2023
GeoPandas
Development and integration of the Spherely library within the Python geospatial ecosystem for processing geographic spatial data
$10,000.00
2023
HoloViz
Revitalizing the HoloViz Website for Enhanced Learning and Community Engagement
$10,000.00
2023
Julia
Harnessing GPU Power for Quantum Leap in Computational Chemistry: Scaling Electronic Structure Methods with Julia Language
$10,000.00
2023
mlpack
Ensuring Compatibility of the mlpack Neural Network Codebase with Bandicoot
$5,000.00
2023
NumPy
Laying the groundwork for a NumPy-Financial 2.0 release
$6,120.00
2023
PyTorch-Ignite
Library improvements and a new machine learning templates written with PyTorch-Ignite
$2,500.00
2023
rOpenSci
A Dashboard Interface for Software Peer-Review
$9,962.00
2023
SciML
SciML: Implementing Methods for Exact Model Reduction.
$8,400.00
2023
Spyder
Internationalization and Spanish Translation of Spyder’s Documentation
$6,300.00
2023
Stan
Non-English versions of Stan user guide and language reference
$10,000.00
2023
pyhf
pyhf Users and Developers Workshop 2023
$10,000.00
2023
mlpack
Completely revamp mlpack documentation
$10,000.00
2023
equadratures
Auto-Differentiable Equadratures
$10,000.00
2023
pandas
Nonvisual Data Science Curriculum and Workshop Series
$7,345.00
2023
MDAnalysis
Unified and comprehensive documentation and learning resources for MDAnalysis
$10,000.00
2023
Blosc
Lossy codecs for images in Blosc2
$9,750.00
2023
Mesa
Python Front End
$5,400.00
2023
Julia
Improving the first-time experience of Julia users with Pluto.jl
$10,000.00
2023
pvlib
Expansion of solar irradiance processing capabilities for pvlib-python (resubmission)
$10,000.00
2023
Spyder
Improving external completion plugins development support in Spyder
$8,190.00
2023
conda-forge
Access control improvements for opt-in CI (Continuous Integration) services
$10,000.00
2023
Bokeh
Rendering LaTeX equations in TARDIS plasma graphs using Bokeh
$10,000.00
2023
PyTables
PyTables to leverage the HDF5 enhanced direct chunk capabilities
$9,500.00
2023
LFortran
Compiling SciPy’s Fortran packages with LFortran
$10,000.00
2023
GeoPandas
Create a more consistent geometry API through the feature parity between low-level (Shapely) and high-level (GeoPandas) packages
$8,000.00
2023
NetworkX
Adopting property-based testing in NetworkX
$3,550.00
2023
SciPy
Streamlined Special Function Development in SciPy
$10,000.00
2023
conda
A fast, modern and memory safe solver for mamba & conda!
$8,000.00
2023
poliastro
Enhancing the visualization capabilities of poliastro
$4,500.00
2023
Stan
Commumity building through StanCon 2023
$10,000.00
2023
sktime
Coverage of expeditures for 2022 developer days – core developers and mentees were invited to travel to London
$5,000.00
2022
SunPy
Scoping the future of timeseries data in sunpy
$5,250.00
2022
Julia
Enabling Seamless Geospatial Computing in Julia with GeoInterface
$10,000.00
2022
ArviZ
Abstract plotting backend interface
$10,000.00
2022
PyMC
Jax SMC samplers for PyMC
$10,000.00
2022
Spyder
Improving Spyder IDE UX/UI
$8,190.00
2022
pvlib
pvlib python jupyterhub tutorial
$250.00
2022
Blosc
Enable the C-Blosc2 plugin support for python-blosc2
$6,250.00
2022
pyiron
Helping users build workflows with ontological typing
$6,000.00
2022
PALISADE
Integrating BGV Functionality into OpenFHE
$10,000.00
2022
rOpenSci
Publishing multilingual resources to increase diversity on open source projects
$10,000.00
2022
TARDIS
Support for TARDIS Con 2022
$2,300.00
2022
napari
Add advanced transparency support in napari by adding two-pass rendering to VisPy
$4,600.00
2022
Cantera
Redesigning and Improving Cantera’s Website
$4,600.00
2022
conda-forge
Adding pyproject.toml support to grayskull
$2,700.00
2022
MDAnalysis
Improving the organization and content of MDAnalysis teaching materials
$4,600.00
2022
SciPy
Faster Random Variate Sampling from SciPy Statistical Distributions
$4,100.00
2022
PyTables
PyTables to leverage the HDF5 enhanced direct chunk capabilities
$4,300.00
2022
SymPy
Merging of the new SymPy plotting module and further usability improvements
$2,300.00
2022
LFortran
Compiling SciPy with LFortran
$4,600.00
2022
Blosc
Make python-blosc2 to leverage most of the new capabilities in C-Blosc2
$4,100.00
2022
Julia
Advancing Julia Outreach and Community Efforts (Re-applying from last round, updated per committee feedback)
$4,600.00
2022
PALISADE
Integrating BGV Functionality into PALISADE
$4,600.00
2022
QuTiP
QuTiP 5 Sprint
$2,700.00
2022
Taskflow
Developer Training Programs for Taskflow
$4,600.00
2022
CVXPY
Modernize the CVXPY web documentation and make it interactive
$4,000.00
2022
GeomScale
Linear algebra kernel for volesti
$4,600.00
2022
FluxML
Make Julia's deep learning ecosystem interoperable with Python models
$4,400.00
2022
Orange
Utilities for internationalization of f-strings
$3,700.00
2022
SciPy
Introducing Users to Powerful New Features of SciPy
$5,000.00
2022
JuMP
Adding complex number support to JuMP
$8,600.00
2022
Spyder
Improving the Spyder IDE installation experience
$7,800.00
2022
FluxML
Make WGLMakie a first-class Makie backend
$10,000.00
2022
TARDIS
Interactive documentation for TARDIS
$3,000.00
2022
GeoPandas
Leveraging the S2 library for processing geographic spatial data in Python
$10,000.00
2022
pomegranate
Backend switch to PyTorch
$10,000.00
2022
Cantera
Developing accessible training modules for new and intermediate Canter users
$2,231.00
2021
GeomScale
A set of Jupyter notebooks for metabolic network analysis
$5,000.00
2021
conda-forge
Updating conda-forge compiler infrastructure
$5,000.00
2021
MathJax
Converting MathJax's speech solution to Typescript
$4,400.00
2021
SciPy
Add PROPACK Sparse SVD to SciPy
$3,550.00
2021
TARDIS
Interactive documentation for TARDIS
$2,500.00
2021
Blosc
A new plugin system for Blosc2
$5,000.00
2021
Orange
Data Science Textbook
$3,000.00
2021
Taskflow
Taskflow-San: Sanitizing Erroneous Control Flow in Taskflow Graphs
$5,000.00
2021
TARDIS
Atomic data infrastructure for TARDIS
$5,000.00
2021
rOpenSci
Sustained Community Engagement and Automated Metrics for Community Health Analytics
$5,000.00
2021
GeoPandas
Scaling GeoPandas with Dask: improved IO for supporting large geospatial data
$5,000.00
2021
LFortran
Improving LFortran to compile stdlib and fpm
$2,400.00
2021
GeomScale
Add parallel implementations in volesti using several C++ methods for parallelism
$5,000.00
2021
Stan
Update mc-stan.org
$4,800.00
2021
PyTorch-Ignite
Library improvements and Semi-Supervised Learning toolkit development.
$5,000.00
2021
Taskflow
Standard GPU Algorithms with Task Graph Parallelism
$5,000.00
2021
NumPy, Scipy,
Pandas, Matplotlib, Bokeh, Project Jupyter, NetworkX, scikit-image
Streamlining, modernizing, and improving accessibility for the PyData Sphinx Theme.
$25,000.00
2021
ITK
Insight Journal
$3,520.00
2021
PyMC
Fine tuning the Bayesian Additive Regression Trees implementation in PyMC3
$5,000.00
2021
SciML
Add Scientific Machine Learning-Based Image Processing Tools and Tutorials to the SciML Organization in Julia
$4,250.00
2021
SymPy
Improving SymPy plotting capabilities
$5,000.00
2021
LFortran
Improving LFortran to Generate Optimized Code
$5,000.00
2021
GeomScale
The first release of software package dingo
$5,000.00
2021
Julia
Machine Learning documentation improvements for Julia
$5,000.00
2021
poliastro
Array types for scaling poliastro
$5,000.00
2021
mlpack
mlpack – ensmallen – Initial GPU support via Bandicoot
$4,765.00
2021
Bokeh
Rewrite and expand Bokeh’s tutorial notebooks with a focus on readability
$5,000.00
2021
SciPy
A Mixed Integer Programming Solver for SciPy
$4,985.00
2021
Blosc
Support for zfp, a lossy codec for floating point data in Blosc2/Caterva
$5,000.00
2021
GNU Radio
GNU Radio Tutorials Revamp
$4,800.00
2021
pvlib
PV ❤️ Storage (adding storage support to pvlib)
$5,000.00
2021
Jupyter/IPython
IPython maintenance and future proofing
$4,800.00
2021
MDAnalysis
Periodic boundary handling and on the fly transformations
$5,000.00
2020
PALISADE
Student Project Integration In Support of PALISADE
$5,000.00
2020
Effective Quadratures
Web presence funding
$800.00
2020
Julia
Improving documentation generation for Julia and its packages
$5,000.00
2020
GeoPandas
Building a better base for the geospatial Python stack: vectorized geometric operations & Shapely 2.0
$5,000.00
2020
pandas
Improved Performance Benchmarking for pandas
$5,000.00
2020
nteract
Improving accessibility and usability for nteract desktop app
$5,000.00
2020
PyMC
Improving and expanding the implementation of Approximate Bayesian Computation
$5,000.00
2020
Shogun
Hyperparameter tuning with Shogun
$4,200.00
2020
Open Journals
Docker images for the Open Journals processing pipeline
$4,000.00
2020
ArviZ
Extend InferenceData capabilities
$1,000.00
2020
Julia
Distributed scheduling with MLJ
$5,000.00
2020
SciPy
Improving boundary handling and data type support in scipy.ndimage
$5,000.00
2020
Orange
Text Add-on Video Tutorials
$4,000.00
2020
Solcore
Improve the sustainability and modularity of Solcore
$5,000.00
2020
mlpack
mlpack – Interactive Machine Learning Notebooks And Documentation
$5,000.00
2020
GeoPandas
Improvement and modernization of GeoPandas documentation
$5,000.00
2020
rOpenSci
Making rOpenSci Community Engagement More Sustainable
$5,000.00
2020
SymPy
Upgrading SymPy Gamma’s infrastructure to support Python 3 and latest SymPy
$3,000.00
2020
Chainer
Chinese documentation
$3,000.00
2020
Shogun
Improving Shogun’s build script generator
$5,000.00
2020
TARDIS
TARDIS Continuous Integration reference data improvements
$2,000.00
2020
QuantEcon
Theme improvements for Jupyter Book
$4,975.00
2020
SunPy
Adding first class support to SunPy for co-aligning images
$5,000.00
2020
nteract
Funding for improving nteract documentation
$5,000.00
2020
conda-forge
Add messaging functionality to conda and conda-build
$5,000.00
2020
ITK
ITK Python Documentation Expansion
$3,500.00
2020
poliastro
New validation framework for poliastro
$3,000.00
2020
Cython
Advancing the state of Cython 3.0
$5,000.00
2020
rOpenSci
Building Engagement through a new Community Call – Virtual Hackathon Model
$5,000.00
2020
PyTorch-Ignite
Visibility and communications improvements
$5,000.00
2020
Gensim
Modernize Gensim Website
$3,500.00
2020
Off-cycle
mlpack
mlpack for the Internet of Things and embedded devices
$5,000.00
2020
Off-cycle
Matplotlib
Hosted mac-mini for testing OSX-specific bugs
$3,000.00
2020
Off-cycle
FEniCS
Travel grants to support researchers and contributors to attend FEniCS Conference 2020
$2,400.00
2020
Off-cycle
ArviZ
Create educational material and give workshops related to exploratory analysis of Bayesian models with ArviZ
$2,500.00
2019
pandas
Improving and modernizing the introductory “Getting Started” pages of the pandas documentation
$5,000.00
2019
Julia
JuliaImages developer meeting
$4,000.00
2019
Gensim
Organize Gensim Documentation & Improve Discovery
$5,000.00
2019
SciPy
SciPy Development Documentation Overhaul
$4,274.00
2019
Cantera
The 4th Annual Kinetics Code Conference
$4,000.00
2019
Cantera
Cantera Packaging and CI Infrastructure Upgrades
$2,500.00
2019
SciPy
Complete the SciPy special functions documentation
$2,500.00
2019
Spyder
Creating the ultimate terminal experience in Spyder with Spyder-terminal
$4,800.00
2019
Astropy
Developing Spectroscopic Reduction Tools
$5,000.00
2019
Blosc
Document Blosc2 frame format and freeze API
$5,000.00
2019
SymPy
Expanding ODE Module
$3,000.00
2019
Bokeh
Websocket Optimization for Tornado (for Bokeh)
$2,500.00
2019
Spyder
Content and design improvements to the Spyder documentation
$1,820.00
2019
rOpenSci
Create an open online rOpenSci Community Contributing Guide
$3,000.00
2019
pandas
Encourage contributors from minority groups to lead efforts in improving pandas documentation
$3,000.00
2019
SciPy
Enhanced LAPACK Support in SciPy
$4,978.00
2019
MathJax
Improved Dyslexia Support via Fine Grained Synchronized Highlighting
$4,688.00
2019
Matplotlib
Matplotlib Cheatsheets
$5,000.00
2019
conda-forge
Unified Recipe Regenerator
$3,750.00
2019
Shogun
Shogun Developer Meeting, Berlin
$4,000.00
2019
Off-cycle
Shogun
Fully integrate new parameter framework, unify API/interfaces, and release Shogun 7.0.
$1,500.00
2018
Orange Data Mining
Girls go Data Mining
$3,000.00
2018
SunPy
Improving the Usability of SunPy’s Data Downloader
$3,000.00
2018
Gensim
Modern user-friendly documentation
$3,000.00
2018
Cantera
Modernize, Reorganize, and Update Cantera’s Documentation
$3,000.00
2018
Spyder
Spyder 4: Making the Scientific Python Development Environment even better
$3,000.00
2018
Julia
(Sheehan Olver) BlockBandedMatrices.jl: add support for general array backends (GPU)
$3,000.00
2018
Bokeh
Bokeh Docs Modernization
$3,000.00
2018
Pomegranate
Improving Documentation, Examples, and Tutorials
$3,000.00
2018
SciPy
Maturing a sparse array implementation for SciPy
$3,000.00
2018
MDAnalysis
MDAnalysis tutorial and hackathon
$2,500.00
2018
Statsmodels
Probability Plots and Generalized Additive Models (finish stalled pull requests)
$3,000.00
2018
Shogun
Shogun website and UX redesign
$2,500.00
2018
pomegranate
Adding compatibility with user-defined Python models
$3,000.00
2018
SciPy
An Efficient, High-Level Implementation of Linear Programming
$2,000.00
2018
PyTables
Better support for native HDF5 files
$3,000.00
2018
conda-forge
conda-forge sprint at SciPy 2019
$3,000.00
2018
Gensim
FastText tutorials
$3,000.00
2018
SymPy
MatchPy C++ code generator for SymPy/symengine.
$3,000.00
2018
Julia
Multi-Dimensional Bisection Method for finding the roots of non-linear implicit equation systems
$3,000.00
2018
Open Journals
Open Journals website update
$2,800.00
2018
Cantera
The 3rd Annual Kinetics Code Conference: Charting near- and long-term directions for Cantera software development
$3,000.00
2018
FEniCS
Travel grants to FEniCS Conference 2017 to encourage the transition from user to regular contributor
$2,400.00
2017
PyTables
h5py backend for PyTables
$3,000.00
2017
NumExpr
NumExpr-3.0 Beta
$3,000.00
2017
SymPy
SymPy 1.1 Release Support
$3,000.00
2017
Orange
Text Analytics Introductory Course for Social Scientists
$1,750.00
2017
MDAnalysis
Widening platform availability for MDAnalysis: Full Python 3 Support
$1,500.00
2017
AMS Organization
AMS Short Course on Open Source Radar Software
$1,000.00
2017
“This is an excellent way for NumFOCUS to help the development of its projects — thanks for running it!”
—SunPy, NumFOCUS Sponsored Project
“The amount of time we have to wait to bring pandas2 to the public is directly correlated to the amount of funds we have for developer time.”
—Jeff Reback, pandas Lead Developer
NumFOCUS Sponsored Projects
Explore the Projects
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