Overview: NumFOCUS Projects - NumFOCUS

NumFOCUS is currently in the process of updating its financial and administrative systems. New project applications will not be considered until this work is complete. This page will be updated when a timeline for reopening applications is available.
NumFOCUS aims to ensure that funding and resources are available to sustain projects in the scientific data stack over the long haul. One of the ways we accomplish this vision is through programs that provide support for open source scientific computing projects: our fiscal sponsorship program and our affiliation program.
Project leaders benefit from participation in the NumFOCUS network, which includes leaders from a variety of scientifically oriented open source computing communities. NumFOCUS leverages our broad, international network to help build connections that support our projects. In addition to making strategic introductions, NumFOCUS creates opportunities for project leaders to connect with one another as a group, both in person and through digital forums.
NumFOCUS projects benefit from elevated visibility as a result of their association with the organization. We work to highlight all of our projects through various communications and marketing activities. We also find opportunities to showcase our projects with potential and current corporate sponsors.
All NumFOCUS-supported projects are eligible for funding through two of our programs:
Small Development GrantsNumFOCUS awards small development grants to help our projects improve usability, grow their communities, and speed up the time to major releases. Eligibility is limited to our fiscally sponsored and affiliated projects, and calls for proposals are run 3 times per year. Funds for the small development grants program are made possible by the generosity of our individual donors and corporate sponsors.
Google Summer of CodeNumFOCUS has participated as an umbrella organization for Google Summer of Code since 2015. Our fiscally sponsored and affiliated projects are eligible to participate in GSoC under NumFOCUS. We manage the administration of the program, which means that participating projects can focus on the mentoring relationship with their students.
Fiscally sponsored projects formally become part of NumFOCUS. NumFOCUS provides a number of services for fiscally sponsored projects, including financial administration, operational and legal support. Fiscally sponsored projects are also eligible to use NumFOCUS resources and infrastructure to help raise money for the project.
Qualification for fiscal sponsorship requires meeting a higher bar than affiliation, to ensure that NumFOCUS can legally represent the project.
Affiliated projects benefit from their association with NumFOCUS as outlined above: through community, funding, and promotion. Affiliated projects remain legally separate from NumFOCUS. We do not assume any legal or fiduciary responsibilities for affiliated projects and do not provide any additional services for these projects.
Fiscal sponsorship helps projects attract and manage funding. Donations to NumFOCUS fiscally sponsored projects are tax-deductible.
Licensing Trademark Registration & Ownership Contracts & Agreements
Accounts Payable & Receivable Grant Administration Contractor Agreements Taxes & Reporting
Technical Infrastructure Conference & Event Planning Consulting on a variety of administrative requests
Fiscally sponsored projects under the Comprehensive Model formally become part of NumFOCUS — in other words, NumFOCUS maintains all legal and fiduciary responsibility for the project. Any work product of the Fiscally Sponsored Project is available to the public or to the charitable sector, and NumFOCUS assures funders that the purposes and any restrictions of all grants and/or contributions will be met. The Comprehensive Model of fiscal sponsorship helps protect individual contributors from legal liability and ensures project assets are owned by the project and not individual contributors.
The Grantor-Grantee Model is a “lightweight” option for fiscal sponsorship, for when a project is in need of an entity to receive and manage grant funding. In this model, the project remains a separate entity responsible for managing its own tax and liability issues. NumFOCUS ensures that the project will use the grant funds received to accomplish the ends described in the grant proposal, in alignment with our purpose as a 501(c)(3) public charity in the United States.
NumFOCUS projects contribute to the advancement of scientific research. This means that the project either enables some new research challenges to be addressed or makes addressing research challenges significantly better (i.e. – faster, easier, simpler). This often means that the project has dependencies on or integrations with existing NumFOCUS projects.
While NumFOCUS projects typically take the form of an open community maintaining a software package, other types of non-software projects may still qualify. For example, projects with educational goals particular to scientific computing can be a good fit. See, for example, QuantEcon.
NumFOCUS supports projects that are part of a wider community; in the case of software projects, this would mean being interoperable with other projects in the same ecosystem. We support projects in various languages, including Python, Julia, R, C++, and JavaScript. Because NumFOCUS occupies itself with scientific tools, general-purpose projects (IDEs, utilities, programming languages, build systems, etc.) are typically not a good fit.
By “open,” we mean that the project is published under a standard open source license, and that it seeks engagement with the public as an intrinsic part of its development. Open projects typically have:
The above is not meant to be a checklist for openness, but gives a sense of the characteristics typically associated with an active, open community.
We consider distributed decision making a key attribute of any open project and therefore req