We are happy to announce the launch of the mini-grant scheme for Open Data Day 2020.

This scheme will provide small funds to support the organisation of open data-related events across the world on Saturday 7th March 2020.

Thanks to the generous support of this year’s mini-grant funders – Datopian, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Hivos, the Latin American Open Data Initiative (ILDA), Mapbox, Open Contracting Partnership and Resource Watch – the Open Knowledge Foundation will be able to give out 60 mini-grants this year.

Applications for the mini-grant scheme must be submitted before midnight GMT on Sunday 9th February 2020 via filling in this form.

To be awarded a mini-grant, your event must fit into one of the four tracks laid out below. Event organisers can only apply once and for just one track.

Mini-grant tracks for Open Data Day 2020

Each year, the Open Data Day mini-grant scheme looks to highlight and support particular types of open data events by focusing applicants on a number of thematic tracks. This year’s tracks are:

• Environmental data: Use open data to illustrate the urgency of the climate emergency and spur people into action to take a stand or make changes in their lives to help the world become more environmentally sustainable.
• Tracking public money flows: Expand budget transparency, dive into public procurement, examine tax data or raise issues around public finance management by submitting Freedom of Information requests.
• Open mapping: Learn about the power of maps to develop better communities.
• Data for equal development: How can open data be used by communities to highlight pressing issues on a local, national or global level? Can open data be used to track progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs?

What is a mini-grant?

A mini-grant is a small fund of between $200 and $300 USD to help support groups organising Open Data Day events. Event organisers can only apply once and for just one track.

The mini-grants cannot be used to fund government events, whether national or local. We can only support civil society actions. We encourage governments to find local groups and engage with them if they want to organise events and apply for a mini-grant.

The funds will only be delivered to the successful grantees after their event takes place and once the Open Knowledge Foundation team receives a draft blogpost about the event for us to publish on blog.okfn.org. In case the funds are needed before 7th March 2020, we will assess whether or not we can help on a case-by-case basis.

About Open Data Day

Open Data Day is the annual event where we gather to reach out to new people and build new solutions to issues in our communities using open data. The tenth Open Data Day will take place on Saturday 7th March 2020.

If you have started planning your Open Data Day event already, please add it to the global map on the Open Data Day website using this form. 

You can also connect with others and spread the word about Open Data Day using the #OpenDataDay or #ODD2020 hashtags. Alternatively you can join the Google Group to ask for advice or share tips.

To get inspired with ideas for events, you can read about some of the great events which took place on Open Data Day 2019 in our wrap-up blog post.

Technical support

As well as sponsoring the mini-grant scheme, Datopian will be providing technical support on Open Data Day 2020. Discover key resources on how to publish any data you’re working with via datahub.io and how to reach out to the Datopian team for assistance via Gitter by reading their Open Data Day blogpost.

Need more information?

If you have any questions, you can reach out to the Open Knowledge Foundation team by emailing network@okfn.org or on Twitter via @OKFN. There’s also the Open Data Day Google Group where you can connect with others interested in taking part.