Stipend request process

It is our great pleasure to announce that we have just opened our stipend program. The goal of it is to fund open source development, trainings, workshops and other initiatives that will help increase and expand the Beam community. These stipends are funded by our sponsors, membership fees and donations.

The current focus of the foundation is on increasing and expanding the community so we will favour stipends that are targeted to beneficiaries that are new to Erlang/Elixir and the ecosystem. We prefer stipends that support online workshops, online training materials, hands-on trainings, development work (open source) and diversity efforts. On non-beam focused events where there is a clear Beam language component of the event, the stipend will only support the Beam language component of the event. The EEF will consider supporting a hackathon if the event has hands-on Beam languages education for a minimum of 6 hours. We will not fund prizes for hackathons or swag.

We recommend that you submit stipend proposals via our form at least 12 weeks prior to the event. Proposals should be concise and have a clear objective. We encourage those applying for funding to try and get sponsorship from corporations or local sponsors as we want to encourage sustainable, long term relationships with them. The EEF could limit the number of events per organizer and/or city that are stipended within a given year.

If you want to apply for a stipend, fill out the form here. If you have any questions please reach out to stipends@erlef.org

FAQ

We recommend that stipend requests be submitted at least 12 weeks before the funding is needed.

The maximum conference stipend size is typically around 10 USD per attendee. We prefer to help new events get established in their community and we encourage them to apply for different funding local options as well. Bigger conferences might be assigned a lower amount per attendee. Educational programs run within the conference should request a separate budget.

Our maximum educational program stipend size is typically USD 25 per student, provided the students each receive at least 6 hours of BEAM languages instruction as part of it, however we are open to review this amount on a case by case basis. Please note that subsequent requests for workshops in the same area may be funded at a lower rate to encourage sustainable, long-term relationships with local sponsors.

When submitting your workshop stipend request, it helps us to see a brief budget as this example:

Items Unit Cost Quantity Total Cost
Lunch and drinks 9 50 450
Travel expenses 20 3 60
Hotel expenses 50 2 100
Total 610

There is no maximum, however bear in mind that the foundation has a limited budget and we reserve the right of giving a stipend smaller than requested, let us know if this is a problem for you.

Stipend Proposal Form

(e.g., state or province)

A gathering including talks and other events to promote Beam languages in the local community. A separate stipend should be submitted for educational programs that are a subset of conference events.

Develop a Beam languages-based open source program or library.

The subscription cost of a service providing advertising services for Beam languages-related events.

Teach aspiring Beam language coders under age 18 coding skills.

Development of an open-source project for 2+ days in a team environment.

Multiple weeks or month course on Beam languages that is principally hands-on

An interactive, hands-on, training into one or more specific Beam languages topics/themes/goals, which supports and mentors women.

An interactive, hands-on, training into one or more specific Beam languages topics/themes/goals. It should include at least 6 hours of instruction

Maximum upload size in total limited to 8MB

Describe the purpose of the stipend, location and date, including the date in which the funds must be received. We recommend to send the requests at minimum 12 weeks before the event so we have enough time to review, ask questions and send you the funds. Make sure you explain how this stipend is designed to help grow the community. Also let us know what other forms of sponsorship you have applied for. For workshops/trainings please include the staff:student ratio, the amount of hands-on training time and a lesson plan with learning outcomes for participants.

Specify here the stipend amount in detail. Please note that the EEF may only be able to provide partial funding for a proposal so let us know if this is acceptable to you. Be sure to include a breakdown of the amount you are requesting. We prefer to see what you plan on using the funds for. Example: 1200$ total ($700 for venue, $300 for trav el, $200 for food). To thank you for your sponsorship, we will place the EEF logo on our site and offer you 3 free tickets to the event to distribute as you see fit.

$
We can do checks only within the US. If the request is for $500 or less, PayPal is suggested.

Describe who will be the beneficiaries of the stipend and the expected size of the event. For onsite events we would love to have an overview of other Beam related activities/meetups/trainings/conferences located in that area, the number of attendees, frequency and such.

The EEF would like to see how the stipend was used so we require that we receive a report that will help us understand the impact that the stipends are having and how the activities are received by the community. We require to receive this report within one month of the event. Please describe in this section what items you will include on the report and what follow up activities do you plan on. For example: blog posts, post events write-ups, web pages, project updates, lessons learned (what went well and what needs to improve), the feedback from the participants, social media, number of attendees, demographics, and such.