Obtaining Funding

RIT exists to support worthy software development projects for the benefit of Mellon constituencies, so we welcome your inquiries; however, we ask that you first review our project Criteria and Priorities, to determine whether your project is potentially a good fit with our mission.

After that review, if you feel that that your project may fit our program, we ask that you begin your inquiry with a brief e-mail message to indicating your interest in RIT support. That message should include:

• A brief (3-4 sentences) statement of the aim of the project. If not obvious, this should include some indication of how the project intersects with Mellon's traditional constituencies.
• A clear, very short (1-3 sentences) statement of the project's deliverable(s):
• At least rough estimates of:
  • The total amount of time and money required for the project
  • The amount of money you wish to request from us
  • (if applicable) The source(s) of the balance of the needed funds

If you are asking for only partial funding, include a brief (2-3 sentences), description of how you will use the RIT funding within the project.

We will review your message promptly. If we agree that your project aligns with our mission, we will respond with a request for additional information; if not, we will let you know promptly, so you may pursue other funding options.

If you have already written a proposal, you may attach it to your inquiry message, but understand that typically, we go through several iterations of information gathering, including telephone conversations, meetings, and possibly site-visits, before asking you to draft a formal proposal. Those interactions provide us with the information we need to assess your project's fit with our mission, and provide you with the information necessary to draft a successful proposal. We are unlikely to accept an uninvited proposal.

Mellon's program staff is a small, highly collegial group. We routinely share information about prospective projects with our colleagues in other programs, to solicit their impressions and ensure that we are not duplicating effort. If you are unsure whether RIT is the most appropriate Mellon program for your project, you have two choices: you may address your initial inquiry to two or more of our staff; or you may address it solely to us but ask us explicitly to discuss it with one or more of our other programs as well.  Please do not send the same proposal to more than one Mellon program without informing each program officer that the other(s) have received it as well.