There are three categories for which you can apply to receive a grant from the Knight Foundation: (1) General Open Source, (2) New Business Ventures, and (3) the Young Creators category.

Today is the last day that you can apply for a grant. I would encourage startups, organizations, academic programs, and driven people to apply for this opportunity if you meet the basic criteria. According to their website, you need to:

1. have strong digital innovation,
2. use new forms of news or information in the public interest, and
3. focus on a specific geographic community.

At the time of publishing, only 227 applications have been posted to the Open Category, and 54 to the Young Creators category. The New Business Ventures category is closed, and as a result, we can’t see how many applications have been made.

How about those young creators? Good for you. They represent 35% of the total applicants world-wide. This is reserved for people 25 years and younger. (Funny, I guess I’m a young creator too…just barely.)

eNeighbors has applied to the New Business Ventures category. I wanted to seek funding from the Knight News Challenge because of the obvious alignments between our organizations:

1. eNeighbors has a strong digital innovation – online social networking for neighborhoods
2. eNeighbors uses new forms of news/info in the public interest – neighbors participate in contributing community news and information
3. eNeighbors focuses on specific geographic communities – neighborhoods

I’m hoping to see some more interesting applications to review.