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 developed a PeerTube-browser project. Or it would be more correct to say that it is an ongoing process. It is basically a tool for browsing PeerTube videos from all over the PeerTube network, and it displays the content in a familiar YouTube-like user interface with a bunch of features like searching, filtering by categories, tags, languages, and even a kind of a personal recommendation system.
I consider myself a content creator and while I was discovering PeerTube for the first time, I encountered a fundamental discovery problem with it, and with the help of AI, I am trying to solve this problem with this PeerTube-browser project.
I really like the idea of the Fediverse, and I really like creating stuff, including content and, recently, a software. So I’m kind of a person who is aware of those two sides of the river. I would really like to collaborate with someone, even more if it brings in some income. Anyway, I’m working on this project just for the sake of my personal interest.
The web app is temporarily down, because I’m on the stage of fixing major issues. You can check out the source: https://github.com/denikryt/PeerTube-browser
I have also developed a Discord Fediverse bridge application. In short, it is software that makes it possible to follow Lemmy communities and display their posts and comments in Discord forum channels. And it also works both ways. So you can create posts and comments in the remote community, as well as create a community that can be followed from other instances in the Fediverse. I’m writing from this bridge : ) Source: https://github.com/denikryt/discord-fediverse-bridge
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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.
Ah, okay! So it’s meant to be more like “user research” than, like, a GameJam which might also bring together a developer and artist, but for the purpose of collaborating on some finished project.
That makes sense! Though part of me feels like maybe it would have been easier to find a bunch of content creators and developers separately, and then pair them up or something. I assume a content creator who arrives together as a team with a developer will already have a lot more context than the average user. 😛
But anything more that gets done is sweet, so good luck! We’re all rooting for you.
They’re also willing to set up creators and developers. They can apply to another form separately and be matched to someone.
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. :)
