Purpose: GitLab Foundation’s grant renewal principles aim to maximize impact and return on investment by prioritizing continuation or expansion of partnerships that demonstrate successful execution, evidence of learning and adaptation, and alignment with the foundation's evolving strategies. This ensures renewal decisions are strategic and focused on high-potential projects capable of scaling, fostering multi-funder collaboration, driving systems change, and delivering lasting outcomes.

This framework is especially relevant for grants transitioning from initial “laboratory” to scaling grants, or expansions of systems change efforts.

GitLab Foundation Principles for Grant Renewals:

  1. Completion of Initial Grant Compliance and Reporting:
    1. Grantees must submit a final impact survey and financial report before renewal or follow-on funding approval. Reports may be submitted before the grant term ends if needed.
    2. Unspent funds may be factored into a renewal proposal to support agreed-upon objectives.
    3. No-cost extensions may be granted when results cannot be sufficiently reported by the end of the grant term.
  2. Demonstrated Progress, Learning, and Adaptation:
    1. Grantees must achieve at least 50% of the proposed outcomes from the initial grant to be eligible for renewal.
    2. Projects that fell short of goals may still be considered for new laboratory grants if they demonstrate significant learning and adaptations to enhance future impact.
    3. Renewal projects are evaluated based on their contribution to the Foundation’s goals of achieving >100x NSROI or <$1000 DIL.
    4. Priority is given to projects with evidence of direct, measurable impact during the grant term and long-term systemic outcomes.
  3. Partnership First - Fundraising and Matching Requirements:
    1. Gitlab Foundation takes a partnership-first focus with our renewal grants, using our laboratory grants to help an organization learn, test, build evidence, and improve its capability to fundraise.
    2. Scaling or systems change grants require at least a 1:1 match of external funds.
    3. Matching funds do not need to be secured before project approval, but if they are not, grantees must present a formal plan to secure additional funding to meet this requirement.
    4. Program Officers will work collaboratively with applicants in support of this Partnerships goal when possible.
  4. Strategic Alignment and Additionality:
    1. Renewal decisions prioritize grantees whose work aligns with the Foundation’s evolving geographic and thesis priorities.
    2. Priority is given to projects that benefit other current or potential grantees or critical pieces of an important ecosystem (e.g., public data systems, shared outcomes in a region, or scalable tools).
    3. We consider factors such as geographic location, organizational budget size, and the gender and ethnicity of leadership to assess where our funding can provide the greatest additional impact. This includes prioritizing organizations led by women, leaders of color, and those with smaller budgets or operating outside the United States, as these groups often face greater challenges in accessing traditional funding sources.
  5. Long-Term Partnership and Systems Impact Potential:
    1. Renewal decisions assess grantees' potential to drive systems change, influence policy, market, or sector practices, and attract additional programmatic and financial partners.
    2. Multi-year funding may be considered to support continuity and coordinated planning for systemic impact.
    3. To do this we’ll seek to understand grantees track record of leveraging foundation support to:
      1. Influence policy, institutions or public systems
      2. Engage new programmatic and financial partners.