I’m not with the SWF, but today they announce a $20,000 grant for a team of a developer and a content creator. I’m no developer, but if anyone wants to apply with me, I’m up for it. :D You can be a part of more than one team. They obviously can’t and won’t take all entries, but why not try?
Here’s the page:
Today, with the help of our partner the Interledger Foundation, we are announcing a new program of grants for multimedia software and creators. In this program, we are asking software developers and publishers to partner to make new and better content on the Fediverse.
Multimedia, such as audio, video, and images, provides an engaging experience for Fediverse users. It can give a more visceral social and media experience than text alone. Multimedia software, however, can be difficult to develop, host, and use, and integrating it with other ActivityPub services takes time.
It’s also challenging to produce engaging media on the Fediverse. It can be hard to develop an audience, work with unfamiliar tools, and understand the different dynamics of a federated architecture.
Our intent with the Fediverse Multimedia Grants program is to bring more, and newer, rich content to the Fediverse for people to enjoy. We want to give creators a chance to get their feet under them, develop an audience, and make a permanent home on the Fediverse. We also want this program to help developers concentrate on creators’ needs — authoring, editing, organizing and publishing rich, engaging content.
For this program, we are offering grants of up to US$20,000 to developer/creator teams to start new publications on the Fediverse. We expect the teams to work in close cooperation, providing mutual support and feedback. Our expected outcome is ActivityPub-enabled software that’s better fitted to the needs of creators, and new publications with a foothold in the Fediverse.
Applications are open today at the Fediverse Multimedia Grants round of our grants portal. Applications are only for developer/creator teams. For publishers who aren’t familiar with Fediverse software, or developers who don’t have a good idea for a publisher to work with, please feel free to contact us and we’ll try to point you in the right direction to make a match.
Important dates for the program:
Applications open: 7 Oct 2026 (today)
Applications due: 4 Nov 2026
Decisions announced: 18 Nov 2026
Projects start: 1 Dec 2026
Please ask questions in the comments and replies for this post, or contact us privately. I (Evan) will also be organizing a session on the grant program at Fediforum today, 7 Oct 2026.
Thanks so much to the Interledger Foundation who generously funded this and other programs at the Social Web Foundation and who have been excellent creative partners in crafting this program.
I’m not sure I understand the team premise…
They want a developer to work on adding multimedia applications or features to the Fediverse, and they also want artists to make content for the Fediverse, both of which make sense, but why team them up? Is the intention that the content creator member be the first user of the features the developer is developing? If so there might be a boring lead-time where the content creator can’t do anything and they’re just waiting on the developer to build a thing.
I’m not saying it’s a bad idea necessarily… I think I’m just confused at the shape of what they’re hoping to come out of this.
The team idea is to pair content creators, bring them in, have those creators tell developers where they’re hitting rough spots. It doesn’t need to be like “Build me TikTok” or something. It’s to find the tools that are missing. And getting content creators using the Fediverse and working with a developer, they can bridge that gap. And it doesn’t have to be software purely for content creation.
Say a content creator wants to run their own Lemmy. So they team up with the Lemmy devs. They start using Lemmy, giving their thoughts, bugs, feature requests, etc. The Lemmy devs then work on that. That’s it. Right now, we don’t know what tools are missing from other platforms. Majority of us just exist here.
What kind of content do you create? That might help you find someone :)
I make content for the fediverse, about the fediverse. Fireside Fedi and Works On My Machine Live are on tubefree.org, my Peertube platform backed by my public charity BT Free.
I’m already trying to reach out to fediverse developers to see if anyone is interested in applying as a team and then coming up with content for them. Not that the grant HAS to be that way. Just what I do. :)
