Public Equals Online

In an effort to increase the scale and effectiveness of individuals and groups who are working to make government more transparent across the country, the Public=Online campaign provides a limited amount of mini-grants as financial support.

The Public=Online mini-grants are designed to be a stimulus for organizing and actions which build political muscle for the campaign. In almost every case, the groups or individuals receiving funds will be asked to match their mini-grant, in full or in part, with their own fundraising.

Whenever possible, our grants will seek to employ the 20-50-30 model for grant matching. Once the overall cost of a project is set, the 20-50-30 model works by granting 20% at the outset to support the recipient in raising the next 50% on their own. Once the grantee raises 50% of the total on their own, the remaining 30% of the mini-grant is then distributed, ultimately creating a 50-50 project cost share.

Mini-grants provided by the Public=Online campaign will generally range between $500-5,000 in matching.

CRITERIA

The primary criteria that we will use to determine who or what receives mini-grants are:

• Network
  First and foremost, we'll look at the prospective grantees' existing networks which they will use to organize supporters (pledge signatures) for the campaign.

• Know-how
  Do you know how to organize supporters around a cause? Do you know how to raise and spend money to deliver results?

  Putting resources to their most effective and responsible use isn't easy. The first round of mini-grants are aimed entirely at gaining more supporters for the campaign and generating activity that puts pressure on government. We're looking for folks that know how to make that happen.

• Location
  The Public=Online campaign is strategically targeting a handful of states where there are already groups of open government advocates coming together, so that we can put "fuel" on those fires.

METRICS

The reason grants are made is to deliver results that couldn't be achieved without applied resources. Those results need to be measured, and recipients will be held accountable for meeting them.

Mini-grant recipients of the Public=Online campaign will be accountable for delivering two primary things:

1. Numbers of new individual pledge signers and organizational supporters

2. Content and new media created by the recipients and supporters that demonstrates campaign activity at the local, state and federal levels

Other criteria and metrics may, and most likely will, be applied dependent on the organizational or individual recipient.