The FreeCAD Grant Program

The FreeCAD Grant Program aims to foster rapid development of FreeCAD and its ecosystem by giving small grants to developers and non-programming contributors to work on specific individual projects. Their work is funded by the community: grants are issued by the FreeCAD Project Association, which collects donations. The FPA has reserved 80,000 EUR for the program in 2025.

For details on program rules, please refer to the complete rulebook.

The program was introduced in 2024 as a successor to the FPA Development Fund launched in August 2022.

2025 Program Timeline

Grants are evaluated and issued quarterly, with one fourth of the total budgeted funding available during each grant period, on the following schedule:

Q1: March 1 submission deadline, March 15 committee meeting, voting complete by March 31
Q2: June 1 submission deadline, June 21 committee meeting, voting complete by June 30
Q3: Sept 1 submission deadline, Sept 20 committee meeting, voting complete by Sept 30
Q4: Nov 15 submission deadline, Dec 7 committee meeting, voting complete by Dec 19

Grants received after the Nov. 15 deadline will not be considered for the 2025 grant year, but will be held until the 2026 program is announced.

Potential Projects

The FPA accepts applications to improve both FreeCAD and its ecosystem.

For FreeCAD-related projects an overall preference is given to projects that address major issues that are covered by the general roadmap. We accept and welcome non-roadmap submissions as well.

We also accept “time commitment” grant applications where the contributor would work for a certain amount of time on any tasks related to a particular effort, such as refactoring code. Please refer to the Fixed Goal vs Time Commitment section of the rulebook.

Ecosystem includes (but is not limited to) FreeCAD infrastructure, as well as projects that are hard dependencies for FreeCAD, such as OCCT and Coin3D libraries. For ecosystem projects, we expect contributors to be in agreement with respective projects on goals and scope of work, as well as on contribution process prior to submitting the grant application.

Qualifying for The Program

Both individuals and groups of individuals can qualify as grant acceptees. Applicants of all ethnicities, nationalities, sexes, and genders are welcome to apply for participation at the program, however some EU legislation restrictions might apply. Each applicant is expected to be old enough to perform work legally in the country of their residence and sign a contract with the FPA on behalf of themselves.

The program is geared towards individual contributors. However, the FPA grant committee will accept grant applications from a group of contributors as long as the group is either an incorporated company or a group of individuals represented by a single person. Each member of the group needs to qualify for participation.

Application Requirements

We expect each applicant to have a great understanding of the scope of the proposed work. They should demonstrate the ability to plan their work ahead and deliver results in a timely manner without active mentorship. For details, please refer to the Passing Criteria section of the rulebook.

How to Submit a Grant Application

Grant applications are managed in a public GitHub repository in the FreeCAD project. To submit a grant application, start creating an issue and choose the application template in the form, then fill all the fields.

FAQ

Do I have to be a CAD development superstar to qualify?

Not necessarily. Some of the successful grants have been issued to developers who don’t have a ton of experience developing CAD software. However, they have great problem-solving skills and demonstrated understanding of the underlying math. Grants are also possible for non-programming contributors.

I’m a student. Should I apply for GSoC or for the grant program?

This largely depends on how comfortable you feel around the FreeCAD code base. For GSoC, we provide some assistance via mentors. For the grant program, we expect contributors to be self-sufficient, all code goes through the same PR review process.

Is there a “pencils down” deadline for the grant work like at GSoC?

No, we issue grants for projects that wildly vary in scope and complexity. Some projects would be a 1 month effort. Others could last half a year or more.

I missed the queue for the annual program. Now what?

You can apply for an individual grant. The same rules apply: make a great case for your project idea, demonstrate that you are capable of delivering proposed results, submit pull requests and progress updates, get paid for each stage, be a hero to all of us.

Who reviews applications?

The grant review committee looks at technical aspects of each grant application. Current members: Chris Hennes (@chennes, overall maintainer, committee chair), Yorik van Havre (@yorik, Arch and Draft maintainer), @FreeCutter, @shaise, and @drmacro. Anyone who is interested in joining the grant review committee should reach out to Chris Hennes (chennes@freecad.org, @chennes on Discord, @chris_hennes on Telegram, and @chennes on the FreeCAD Forums).

The FPA general assembly then takes the technical review into consideration and looks at non-technical aspects of the proposal. The general assembly is more diverse, its members are both FreeCAD contributors, educators, and representatives of nonprofits and businesses. The full list of members is here.

What happens if my situation changes and I can’t continue working on a project?

That depends on how much work you have managed to do. If you are in the middle of a project stage and you have already submitted mergeable or already merged pull requests, the FPA can issue a partial compensation for that stage and terminate the contract.

Alternatively, you can request a partial compensation and a pause to handle your situation. We do not request you to share your life details with us, but we expect you to warn us in a timely manner.