To get an idea of what sorts of grants are generally accepted, you can read through past grants for 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. You can also read through the grant-related postings to the Perl Foundation blog. As a general rule, a properly formatted grant proposal is more likely to be approved if it meets the following criteria:

• It has widespread benefit to the Perl community or a large segment of it.
• We have reason to believe that you can accomplish your goals.
• We can afford it (we rarely approve anything more than a couple of thousand dollars).

The thorniest issue, as always, is the grant amount. If you do not include a grant amount, the grant will not be approved. So how much do you ask for? While we have information in this posting about the grant committee, the reality is fairly simple. We're a non-profit organization and we are not flush with cash. If you charge us a typical hourly rate, we probably cannot afford it. Typical grant awards are generally in the $500 to $3000 range, but we have gone under and over those amounts, depending on the grant. As a general rule the less expensive it is, the more likely it is that we can afford to fund it. For highly speculative grants (in other words, projects whose benefits may be unclear or have a high chance of failure), we are unlikely to risk large amounts of our donor's money.