Consumer Privacy Rights Fund

About the Fund

The Consumer Privacy Rights Fund supports privacy protection and privacy education efforts.

The current grant cycle supports projects that educate users, regulators, and enterprises regarding critical issues relating to the protection of privacy, identity, and personal information through user control, and to protect users from online threats.

Funding for this grant cycle comes from approximately $500,000 in cy pres funds from Facebook through the Fraley v. Facebook settlement. A sincere thanks to class counsel the Arns Law Firm and Jonathan Jaffe Law for their efforts protect online privacy and for securing these funds.

Deadlines

The current grant cycle of the Consumer Privacy Rights Fund is a two-step process. Any group that meets the eligibility criteria is welcome to submit a letter of inquiry; we expect to receive a large number of these submissions. The deadline to submit a letter of inquiry is September 22, 2017 at 5:00pm PDT. Because of limited funding, only a select number of applicants will be invited to submit a full grant proposal after submitting a letter of inquiry. For those invited applicants, the deadline to submit a full proposal is December 15, 2017 at 5:00pm PST.

ELIGIBILITY

  • The applicant must demonstrate expertise in consumer privacy.
  • The applicant must be a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, or be fiscally sponsored by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Nonprofit colleges, universities, university clinics and graduate programs are eligible to apply, but university overhead is limited to 5% of grant award.
  • An applicant’s principal place of business must be located in the United States and projects must benefit consumers in the United States.

Scope of Allowable Activities and Projects

  • Projects must be targeted towards users, regulators, and enterprises residing in the United States. These projects may be regional, statewide or national in scope.
  • Proposals must relate to privacy protection and privacy education efforts.
  • It is anticipated that eligible projects may encompass, but not be limited to, the following issues or focus areas:
    • Protection of privacy, identity, and personal information through user control.
    • Education and outreach activities that teach adults and children how to use social media safely; how to protect privacy, identity, and personal information online; and about other issues including protection from online threats (including cyber-bullying).
    • Protection of the right to publicity and privacy of social media users.
    • Action at the intersection of online privacy and advertising:
      • Developing policies that address the commercialization of personal information and how to protect everyone, especially children, from these threats.
      • Advocating for meaningful choices, clear consent, and increased user control online in regards to how personal information is utilized in connection with advertising, especially on social media sites.
      • Enhancing the public’s knowledge of practices regarding user privacy and advertising on social media sites.
  • Allowable Activities: Projects may use this grant funding to engage in the following activities to complete their objectives:
    • Education or organizing including trainings, classroom activities, conferences, and/or print, web-based or social media outreach.
    • Policy and/or regulatory development and implementation, including related research. Such related research could include, but is not limited to:
      • Technical research on topics such as data flows or de-identification.
      • Polling and survey research.
      • Social science or economic research.
    • Development of privacy-enhancing technologies that give users control over their personal information, such as the creation of libraries of privacy-respectful code for developer use.
    • Policy advocacy including costs of social science, technology, or economics experts; events for legislators and other policy-makers to help them understand cutting edge issues such as biometrics, algorithmic bias and transparency, encryption and data security, machine learning or automated systems; or legal advocacy including case development and litigation.

Prohibited Activities

Projects may not use this grant funding to engage in the following activities:

  • Electioneering or other political or religious activities prohibited by IRS 501c(3) regulations.
  • Activities primarily targeted or conducted outside of the United States.

How To Apply

The Consumer Privacy Rights Fund is currently accepting letters of inquiry. It is anticipated that the application process will be highly competitive. It is expected that most proposals will be for 12-month grant periods; however, multi-year proposals are encouraged where appropriate. The maximum allowable total request is $50,000 even for multi-year proposals.

To apply, applicants must complete a 2-step process using our online grant system. The first step is to submit a letter of inquiry. Any group that meets the eligibility criteria is welcome to submit a letter of inquiry. We expect to receive a large number of these submissions.

Because of limited funding, only a select number of applicants will be invited to submit a full proposal. If invited to submit a proposal, you will have the opportunity to write a detailed description of your proposed project. Click here for more information on how to apply, including instructions for letters of inquiry, applications, and how to use our online system. 

Consumer Privacy Rights Fund Webinar

Are you interested in applying to the Consumer Privacy Rights Fund, but are not sure if your project is a good fit? Do you want to learn more about how to use our online application process? Do you have questions about what you should include in the Narrative Description or Evaluation sections of your Letter of Inquiry? Click here to view the recording of our August 30, 2017 How To Apply webinar. Click here to download the PDF slides used in the webinar.

CURRENT GRANTEES

Click here to read about our most recent Consumer Privacy Rights Fund grantees.

Funding Board

Click here to learn more about the advisory volunteer funding board of individuals with tremendous expertise in the field of privacy rights.

 

Please Click here to receive notifications about the Consumer Privacy Rights Fund and other funding opportunities.

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