At CrowdTangle, everyday we’re impressed with how newsrooms use our tool to follow, analyze and report on what’s happening on social media and deliver incisive reporting around the biggest topics of the day. To encourage even more innovative reporting, and help audiences get a better understanding of the far-reaching impact of COVID-19, we’re granting $20,000, plus support from our team, to two partners who dream up interesting ways they would use the CrowdTangle API to cover the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath.
APPLICATIONS CLOSED
Applications opened May 11, 2021 at 9am ET and closed June 13, 2021, 11pm ET.
*Please review the full Terms & Conditions before applying.
Our goal? To help newsrooms and, ultimately, their readers, understand the impacts of COVID on social media, the news ecosystem, and diverse communities. We hope this grant will help provide development funds to produce innovative new data journalism projects, or products, that better help newsrooms and journalists cover the pandemic and the “post-COVID” world. We will bring together diverse voices in the news and research spaces to mentor winners, as well as provide access to our CrowdTangle partnerships and developer team. To start, we’re hosting a webinar May 20th, at 2pm ET, to go over the basics of what’s possible with the API, and provide some inspiration.
Applications are open to any current CrowdTangle partner in the US and Canada — and please keep in mind that you do not need to develop any products in advance or have data journalism expertise to apply. We’re looking for great ideas at this phase, and the grant money can then be used to develop and launch the product within the specified timeline, and with the help of business and technology resources at CrowdTangle.
Examples:
— An interactive or dynamically updating visualization
— A Chrome extension
— An integration with Google Studio or Tableau that manipulates CrowdTangle data in an innovative way
— A Slack or Messenger bot, or similar integration
— A product to automate visual reports with CrowdTangle data
— A broadcast TV or live TV integration or another kind of visual product
— Your wildest ideas!
Get some inspiration from our Partnerships and tech teams, in this recorded webinar:
Grant Winners:
Two grantees will receive $20K USD each to build their project. (Please keep in mind, the grant will be subject to local taxation laws.) Both winners will receive support, mentorship and advice from CrowdTangle, the panel of judges, and other mentors.
Panel of Judges
Andaiye Taylor, Founder of Angle Content & Strategy; founder and former editor of Brick City Live, a local news publication covering Newark, NJ.
Becca Aaronson, Interim Executive Director, News Product Alliance
Shawn Mooring, Program Director, Lenfest Institute for Journalism
Cameron Hickey, Project Director, Algorithmic Transparency Institute at the National Conference on Citizenship
Emilie Lutostanski, Director of the Local News Resource Center, Local Media Association
Kadeem Khan, Associate Research Manager, Data for Good, Facebook
Rosalyn Mahashin, Strategic Partner Manager, Facebook Health Partnerships
Grant Program Managers:
Derek Silverman, Product Manager, CrowdTangle
Robin Monheit, North America News Partnerships, CrowdTangle
Selection Process
The panel of judges and the program managers will review the product ideas and select two grant recipients taking into account the following criteria:
The potential impact of the product idea for newsrooms and/or readers
The feasibility of product idea in the timeframe given
The product idea’s potential impact on information around COVID, the COVID vaccine, the “post-COVID” world, and overall health and wellbeing.
Expectations of Grant Recipients
As a condition of receiving a grant, grant recipients must agree to the following, and agree to execute an agreement with Facebook, Inc. that details the following:
The grant must be used to execute the product Idea within six (6) months from receipt of the Grant;
Grant recipients must provide the program managers at Facebook with monthly updates on how the process is going after receiving the Grant (email is sufficient);
After launching the product, grant recipients must provide Facebook with reporting on the number of daily, weekly or monthly users or views for ~3 months post-launch, learnings from product development, and plans for the future, as part of a public-facing case study.
See Grant Program Terms and Conditions for full details.
Please fill out the form below by June 13, 2021, to apply — you'll be asked the following:
Name(s), titles
Organization (if applicable)
Please write 500 words or less explaining your product idea. Make sure to include a problem statement and how this product will be used by either CrowdTangle partners or the public to increase transparency into health issues, the post-COVID world, and/or vaccines on social media. What problem is this solving? Who is the audience? How does this promote quality information on these topics?
Please attach mocks or drawings if possible! (We don’t mind if they’re rough, but visuals are great!)
APPLICATIONS CLOSED
Applications open May 11, 2021 at 9am ET and close June 13, 2021, at 11pm ET
*Please review the full Terms & Conditions before applying.