Mozilla Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Mozilla Foundation aims to improve internet equity and access globally. Its supports technology-based projects in the areas of democracy, community development, economic opportunity, global development, higher education and the arts.
IP TAKE: Mozilla’s awards programs change often and support highly specific technology projects by organizations (awards) and individuals (fellowships). It’s important to check back often here since things are always evolving.
Recent funding has prioritized projects that aim to recognize and reduce algorithmic bias, thereby increasing access to services and opportunity that are increasingly mediated by online resources. This reasonably accessible foundation generally accepts applications for all of its grantmaking programs, but grantseekers are advised to stay abreast of changes, guidelines and due dates via the foundation’s news page. Mozilla’s grantmaking staff’s contact information and social media handles are available at the foundation’s website.
This funder that’s approachable, but expect longer wait times since it’s somewhat bureaucratic.
PROFILE: The Mozilla Foundation is the nonprofit entity of the Mozilla Corporation, a producer of free software products including the Firefox web browser, Bugzilla and Thunderbird email. The Mozilla Foundation grants fellowships and awards to organizations and individuals to “ensure the internet remains a force for good.” Its guiding principles are the protection and empowerment of individuals and communities through “new norms, policies infrastructure and technologies;” diversification of the people involved in the “development, deployment and management of the technologies that make up the web;” and the “rebalance of power online, shifting it back to individuals and communities.” This funder supports projects and initiatives in a broad range of funding areas but works through existing signature awards programs with highly specific goals and priorities. Funding programs include the Data Futures Lab, the Mozilla Technology Fund, the Responsible Computer Science Challenge, Common Voice and the Creative Media Awards.
Grants for Democracy, Community Development, Economic Opportunity and Journalism
The Mozilla Foundation is committed to supporting “individual and collective actions that advance a more human-centered internet” and has created and funded several programs that aim to support the democratization of information, improved connectivity and equitable regulation of the online world. Funding opportunities in these areas include the following.
Mozilla’s Data Futures Lab bills itself as “an experimental space for investigating new approaches to data stewardship challenges.” The lab runs two separate grantmaking programs the Fund and the Infrastructure Fund. The Prototype Fund supports learning and collaboration initiatives focused on “building the tools—legal, technical, and political—to advance the field of data stewardship.” Funding goals include the identification of initiatives with the potential for high impact in data stewardship, as well as projects that facilitate collaborations and open-source documentation. Past grantees include the U.K.’s Worker Info Exchange, Consumer Reports and SignalBoost, a messaging application for activists, organizers and vulnerable populations. The Infrastructure Fund, which has yet to begin its grantmaking, will invest in long-term strategies to “make meaningful change in our digital world” by “reshaping” basic internet infrastructures. Funding focuses on initiatives in the areas of engineering and law.
The Mozilla Technology Fund makes grants to “technical projects in specific areas that relate to internet health” with current funding focusing on “projects which can expose elements of how artificial intelligence (AI) systems work, in order to reduce bias in and increase the transparency of AI systems.” According to the program’s website, the importance of AI rests in the fact that people’s “access to economic opportunity, social interaction, education and banking is increasingly mediated by these systems” and that biased AI can severely limit opportunity and access, particularly among underserved people. Grants stemming from this program are awarded in amounts of up to $50,000 and prioritize open source, transparent projects with the potential for broad impact. It is important to note that the specific focus of the program may change from year to year. Past grantees include Italy’s MAKHNO, which monitors the types of content that regularly removed from social media platforms, and the U.K.’s Algowritten, which analyzes online creative content for evidence of bias.
Grants for STEM Education and Higher Education
The Mozilla Foundation’s funding for higher education stems mainly from its Responsible Computer Science Challenge, which the foundation runs in conjunction with the Omidyar Network, Schmidt Futures and Craig Newmark Philanthropies. The program supports “the conceptualization, development, and piloting of curricula that integrate ethics with undergraduate computer science training.” One funded project involves the collaboration of over 30 computer science scholars in the creation of the Teaching Responsible Computing Playbook, which considers the responsibilities of faculty members in the instruction and training of a new generation of computer scientists. Participants include faculty members from institutions including the University of California Davis, Colby College, Georgia Tech and the State University of New York at Buffalo and others.
Grants for Global Development
Mozilla’s grantmaking for global development stems from its Common Voice program, which operates in East Africa and leverages Mozilla’s “open-source voice data set to unlock social and economic opportunities.” Grants of up to $50,000 are awarded mainly to projects in the areas of agriculture and/or finance for “digitally excluded” people in rural areas of Kenya, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Grants for Arts and Culture
Mozilla launched its Creative Media Awards program in 2021, committing $258,300 to support “artists and technologists who explore, interrogate, and reimagine the role of data in AI systems.” In 2022, the program funded 10 projects, but it is unclear if funding for this program will continue beyond this cohort of grantees. Selected projects included OnlyBans, a computer game that explores “social media censorship and digital discrimination against the sex worker community” and TRUTH, “an interactive web platform that collects and transmits visual and audio-based stories of Black women, by Black women.”
Important Grant Details:
In a recent year, the Mozilla Foundation made about $5.5 million in grants and awards to organizations and individuals with grants ranging from $10,000 to $700,000. This funder tends to support university-based research projects in computer science, as well as nonprofits and individual technologists working to improve internet equity and information access.
The Mozilla Foundation generally accepts applications for its award programs and links application materials and guidelines to its individual award program pages. However, the foundation’s programs and focus areas change frequently; it is imperative that grantseekers stay up to date on the direction of the foundation’s various programs and funding opportunities. Social media handles and other contact information is available for Mozilla’s grantmaking team at the foundation’s website.
PEOPLE:
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