Hello beautiful soul!
If you are planning to submit a proposal for Fund15 (dates to be yet announced), please read this important update regarding eligibility requirements.
As we continue to improve our processes, all active proposals from previous funds are now tracked exclusively through the Milestone Module.
What’s Changing for Fund15?
Starting with Fund15, we will use the Milestone Module to automatically check the status of all previously funded projects.
This means any new proposal submitted by an individual or team with an older, active proposal that is not up-to-date on its milestone reporting will be automatically disqualified.
This policy will be effective starting with the launch of Fund15. Please consider this your advance notice to review your active projects already now and ensure they are fully compliant with their milestone requirements. There will be no exceptions to these rules starting with Fund15.
We look forward to your participation there!
Danny Ribar
Head of Community Operations (let’s connect on X; LinkedIn)
Action Plan: Improving Proposal Submission & Accountability
Objective
To refine the proposal submission process, we are implementing a policy to enforce greater accountability for funded projects. This addresses several key issues:
- Workload management: Efficiently manages the workload for both community reviewers and internal teams.
- Process bottlenecks: Helps to resolve delays caused by projects falling significantly behind their agreed-upon schedules.
- Ecosystem health: Ensures that individuals and teams fulfill their existing commitments before receiving new funding from the Catalyst program.
Background: The Fund14 Transition Period
The requirement for proposers to be up-to-date on milestone reporting was introduced prior to Fund14. However, we found that a large number of participants have missed this specifically, particularly after the long governance break leading into the 2025 budget.
To avoid being overly disruptive, we designated Fund14 as a transition period instead. During this phase, we will issue warnings via email to all proposers with violations in Fund14 - but will not enforce disqualification just yet. Namely rules listed under 3(i) and 3(ii) listed here.
Official Eligibility & Enforcement Rules (Effective F15)
Let’s outline the criteria for application eligibility and the enforcement rules for all active grants going forward.
1. Ineligibility for New Applications
An application submitted to an active fund will be deemed ineligible if the proposing team (or associated individuals) meets any of the following conditions at the time of submission:
- Incomplete legacy projects: Have at least one active project that has been in the delivery phase for over 12 months and remains incomplete.
- Lack of recent progress: Have failed to submit and get approval for at least two Proofs of Achievements (PoAs) within the last 7 months.
- Significant delays: Have at least one existing project that is more than 90 days behind schedule based on the agreed Statement of Milestones.
- Over-commitment: Have more than 6 concurrent projects active at any point in time.
- Failure to disclose: Have not accurately and publicly disclosed all involvements in any active Catalyst projects in their application form.
- Circumvention: Have submitted an application under a different entity or individual in an attempt to circumvent these guidelines.
2. Rules for All Active Grants
These rules apply to all projects with an active grant, regardless of whether they are applying for new funding.
- Automatic cancellation risk: An active grant risks immediate cancellation if the project is more than 90 days behind schedule based on its Statement of Milestones, and the proposal team (or individual) has not proactively sought and received an approved Change Request.
- Important note on change requests: The approval of a Change Request is not automatic. It is granted solely at the discretion of the Fund Operator based on the justification provided.
3. General Enforcement & Consequences
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PoA submission policy: Catalyst program is committed to helping proposers become eligible and will review submitted PoAs as efficiently as possible. However, to ensure fairness and practicality, we must enforce a clear cutoff. To ensure your PoAs are reviewed in time, please submit them well in advance. The timeframe for processing Proof of Achievements cannot be predetermined, as this is contingent on the nature of the work, its complexity, and related factors. Only PoAs fully approved before the application is submitted will count towards eligibility.
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Change Requests: The timeframe for processing Change Requests also cannot be predetermined as this also depends on the nature of the change, the impact on the project etc. Change Requests cannot be used to bypass the eligibility criteria of a funding round. They are to be used in a select circumstances where there’s a relevant rationale to adjust the content/ordering of deliverables and or delivery timelines. Each is considered in isolation and evaluated duly. To this end, only Change Requests fully approved before the application is submitted will count towards eligibility.
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Post-approval discovery: If it is determined that a proposer (team or individuals) did not meet any of the eligibility criteria at their time of submission, their proposal may be subject to immediate grant cancellation, regardless of its current stage. This includes proposals that have already been approved for funding by the community.
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Future eligibility: Any breach of Fund Terms and Conditions, including failure to disclose or attempting to circumvent the rules, will be treated seriously and may result in loss of eligibility to participate in future funding rounds.
Beyond the update
That’s all for now. To get a behind-the-scenes look and catch all the latest news as it happens, follow us on our social channels below.
