The Rapid Response Fund aims at facilitating the digital emergency response community to resolve threats in a timely and comprehensive manner for individuals, communities, and organizations. Open technology fund offers both financial and technical supports.
When there is a clear time-sensitive digital emergency in which an applicant is seeking short-term and urgent support, the Rapid Response Fund provides their support to that applicant. It does not provide support for projects that are more long-term in nature or that aim to build digital security capacity among groups or organizations.
Currently supported services:
- Digital security audits for organizations
- DDoS response and mitigation
- Secure web hosting
- Secure hosting, monitoring, and resiliency of websites during special events (elections, campaigns etc.)
- VPN connections
- Safe internet connections
- Forensic analysis of digital attacks
- Recovery of compromised websites
- Audit of presumably compromised websites
- Malware analysis
Direct Financial Support
When a rapid response applicant’s needs are not sufficiently covered by their Services Partners, OTF can provide financial support directly to help prepare for or mitigate digital threats or emergencies. They provide anywhere from $1 to $50,000 for a period of six months or less for individuals or groups carrying out efforts such as:
- Establishing new Internet connections (such as VPNs) when existing connections have been cut off or are being restricted;
- Providing personal digital protection for online journalists, human rights defenders, NGOs, activists and bloggers;
- Rapid development of tools or translations needed to respond adequately to emergencies;
- Developing decentralized, mobile Internet applications that can link computers as an independent network (mesh or delay-tolerant networks);
- Any appropriate response to digital emergencies not listed above
Location:
OnlineBenefits
The total value of support will not exceed 50,000 USD. Average support amounts are between 5,000 and 25,000 USD.
Eligibilities
Individuals should meet the following criteria to be eligible for funding:
- Individuals of all ages irrespective of nationality, creed or sex
- Individuals who demonstrate skill and ability to conduct rapid response work
- Individuals who have intimate knowledge of the communities they are working with, and the digital threats they experience
Note: They are not able to support applicants within countries that the United States has trade restrictions or export sanctions as determined by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
Eligible Regions: Open for All.
