How Do We Get More Microgrants in India?
I gathered a group of folks and did the BOF session at IndiaFOSS/2026. The idea behind the BoF session wasn’t to present anything, but to solicit ideas and provocations to improve the micro-granting scene in India. There is a real need of microgrants in India. i.e., we do have big-scale grant givers and receivers, but we have very few grant givers in the range of, say, INR 50K.
My idea is how to have more such grants. What might be stopping them, especially if they want to? The discussion was informal, like all BoFs. I made small notes. But here are the takeaways from the discussion.
- A starter pack or playbook for new micro grant-givers, covering the problems I ran into, not just the process I settled on. The amount of work it takes, taxes, and legal questions are what worry people most. This was the biggest ask, and I think I can work on it.
- A 10th-year report: an optional, light email to past recipients, then a publication of short updates, blurbs, or photos to encourage others. I don’t ask folks for updates, but a lot of them do update me anyway. Folks think some grant makers are especially encouraged by the effect. So this kind of report would encourage them. I am considering this.
- Grants on specific themes and sponsors backing a theme, as FOSSUnited did. But in general, there could be theme-specific grant makers, and how do we make it possible for them?
- Publish unfunded proposals so others can support them, and use the email list actively. I am trying this; there is more to do.
Other similar funds that came up during the discussion were Helium Grants, Escape Velocity Grants, Sudha Mahesh Grants, and Bellare Grants; most of them are covered in this wiki.
If you think there are other ways to encourage more small grant makers to come forward and make grants. Do share them.
