Funding#

Outreachy internships are paid internships and a requirement of participating is that we find the money to fund at least one intern. There are different approaches we can take here.

Outreachy funds: Open Science and General#

Outreachy itself has some funding to pay interns in the form of its General fund and Open Science fund, backed by CZI. Eligible communities are able to apply for funding for at least one intern via Outreachy from one of these sources.

Warning

As a large open source project with a lot of social capital within the data science world, we should be mindful not to abuse these funding options where possible and instead save this space for under-resourced communities.

Grant writing#

Note

As a primarily volunteer-based community, it can be difficult for anyone of us to regularly participate in the time-consuming efforts of grant writing. When such an opportunity does present itself, it is encouraged to think about whether including Outreachy and additional funding (suggested below) would provide a strategic benefit to the overall grant.

The other way to fund an intern is to bring the money ourselves, which in JupyterHub’s case, is likely in the form of a grant. Alongside the listed salary of an Outreachy intern, we should consider budgeting for the following additional expenses.

Paying mentors#

Members of our community are very busy and often cannot justify spending more voluntary time to mentor an intern. While not a whole solution to this problem, those who are able to accept payment should be recompensed fairly for their time.

Outreachy sets out expected working hours per week throughout the various stages of the process in their mentor documentation and this can be used to calculate a fair salary for mentors.

Discretionary fund#

A discretionary fund to cover related expenses is also advised. Some line items that could be covered by this fund include:

  • Mentor training: Roughly between $500-$1000

  • Mentor honoraria: If it is not within the scope of the grant to also pay mentors, or the mentors are unable to accept formal payment, then some budget for honoraria to thank them for their time and expertise is encouraged. An example of how mentor honoraria have been distributed in Open Life Science is offering a choice between:

  • Contracting folk to answer questions during the contribution period: The contribution period is intense and Outreachy has a few tips to avoid burnout during this period. Rather than solely relying on volunteers other than the mentors, we could also budget to pay some people for their time to help during this period.

Additional interns#

Sometimes mentors find themselves in the position of having more strong intern candidates than they have funding for. In that case, it is possible to apply to Outreachy for additional intern funding.