Grants

A second source: institutions

The association cannot use so-called equity financing (which can often cost 6% in the world of cooperatives and the social and solidarity economy), because it would have to develop an income-generating activity of its own in euros. The association can therefore only turn to grants (apart from your donations).

Yet grants are rarer, and often tied to a territory (regions, departments, urban areas and groupings of municipalities, town halls). Ademe is one of the exceptions: very independent, empowered to award grants, and not local in scope (national, let us say).

We are looking for other grants. But that depends on people committing over time to find them, write the applications, represent them and follow them up. This need for commitment does not sit well with volunteering (which comes and goes, and flickers); it raises the question of recruiting someone, and therefore of funding a salary out of running costs. The decision is a delicate one, and it has not been taken to date.

This source would be decisive for visibility over the coming months, for the capacity of the reservoir. On the other hand, it cannot guarantee a "flow". Only your donations can do that.

Review of the 2022 Ademe grant

This grant was obtained on the initiative of two developers, Poka and Hugo, as part of Ademe's Appel à Communs (call for commons projects) of the year 2022.
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Associated campaign

“Help the june grow”
A donation campaign was run at the same time, at the end of the year, to raise the required self-funding. This campaign was named “Help the june grow”, with a very ambitious target of €50k. It was extended, and then went through a wrap-up process, in particular to include Benjamin's pay.

[ Ademe website ] - [ Wiki of the calls for commons - AAC ]

Ademe summary

Here is the information entered by hand, pending the ĞWishBounty automation. Links to the Ademe website and to the wiki of the calls for commons. .

Purpose:

Development of fast client software (Gecko vs. G1nkgo) and oxidation of Duniter.
Public application file .

Forecast:

• Grant obtained: €35k
• Self-funding required: 30% (€15k)
• Project budget in the application: €50k .

Actual:

• Project closing amount: €50,722
• Sums received during the project: €17,641
• Balance received on 7 August 2025: €17,359 .

Use of resources - Grant:

All these expenses make up the total budget of the Ademe project. In each bar of the chart, 69% of the amount is covered by the grant and 31% by your donations (self-funding).

Wrap-up:

• The project went through 2 changes, one to extend its scope to Duniter, the other to extend its duration.
• The final report was submitted and corrected according to ADEME's requirements.
• We received the balance on 7 August 2025. Most of your donations therefore covered the cash-flow need to pay the invoices.

Final report – Ğecko project
Blog post - Sept. 2024

Lessons learned

• Managing the institutional relationship is heavy going and creates a "hot potato" effect.
• The changes and the closing report generated a large and laborious workload. We need to bring in more method.
• A reserve of 31% was needed for self-funding and 33.5% for cash flow. It is therefore prudent to hold a reserve close to 65% of a budget subject to a grant.
• Structured analytical financial tracking would be useful.
• The institutional relationship convinced the association to obtain an ESUS accreditation (a French status for social and solidarity enterprises); it therefore triggered heavy work on the articles of association and a contractor's invoice. The internal effects on the association were fairly numerous.
• Setting up a protocol (workflow) and using an AI to support the administrative side of grant applications seem relevant.

Current applications

As of 1st May 2025, three applications had been submitted to NLNet. They were not successful.