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 CrowdTangle to cover the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath.

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 teams.

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. 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. Join here: https://www.crowdtangle.com/resources/signup/542

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!

 
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  http://help.crowdtangle.com/en/articles/5048025-crowdtangle-grant-program-terms-and-conditions for full details.

By submitting this application, you confirm that you have read and agree to be bound by the Grant Program Terms [linked above]. You certify that the information you have provided in this application is true and accurate. You also acknowledge that you understand and agree that CrowdTangle, Inc., its affiliates and third party organizations (i.e. the judges listed above) collect, maintain, use and disclose your personal information and share this information between themselves, for the purposes of: (i) administering the Grant Program; (ii) communicating with you regarding the Grant Program; (iii) other applicable purposes described in the Grant Program Privacy Policy [https://help.crowdtangle.com/en/articles/5195965-crowdtangle-grant-program-privacy-policy] and CrowdTangle Data Policy; and (iv) other purposes permitted by law. If you withdraw your consent for the uses and disclosures detailed in section (i) and (ii), CrowdTangle will be entitled to deny your entry into the Grant Program. Your personal information may be disclosed, processed and stored outside of your country of residence (including in the United States), and therefore may be available to government authorities under lawful orders and laws applicable there.