Deadline: Ongoing Opportunity
Submissions are now open for the Rapid Response Fund Program to resolve threats in a timely manner for individuals, communities, and organizations facing digital attacks and emergencies.
What they do?
- They provide both technical services and direct financial support to high-risk individuals facing acute digital security emergencies or threats.
- Are you facing a clear and time-sensitive digital emergency and need short-term and urgent support?
- They can help through technical services from trusted partners or direct financial support:
- Technical Services from Trusted Partners:
- They work exclusively with community partners who are highly sensitive to and well-aware of the specific needs and challenges of human rights activists, journalists, and internet freedom communities.
- Available Services:
- Category 1: Organizational Security & Digital Security Support
- Digital security audits for organizations
- Urgent risk mitigation for organizations
- Rapid assessment and crisis response planning for organizations
- Organizational security improvements
- Digital security mentoring
- Category 2: Digital Attacks Response & Forensic Analysis
- Analysis of malicious mobile apps
- Security audits of web applications and systems
- Forensic analysis of digital attacks
- Recovery of compromised websites
- Audit of compromised websites
- Malware analysis
- DDoS response and mitigation
- Web application and website vulnerability assessments
- Analysis of compromised mobile phones
- Category 3: Web Hosting
- Migration and onboarding support
- Secure web hosting
- Secure hosting, monitoring, and resiliency of websites during special events (elections, campaigns etc.)
- Provision of human rights abuse documentation tools
- Enabling access to blocked websites (e.g., website mirroring)
- Category 4: Censorship Events and Network Shutdowns Response
- Establishing VPN servers during digital emergencies
- Providing alternative applications for communications and internet access during shutdowns/censorship events
- Analysis of internet disruption events
- Network shutdown response
- Category 5: Localization
- Translation of relevant documents and/or digital security guides
- Localization of circumvention tools, secure messaging tools, or any other privacy-enhancing tools in response to digital emergencies
- Category 1: Organizational Security & Digital Security Support
- Technical Services from Trusted Partners:
Funding Information
- Direct financial support awards are typically anywhere from $1 and $50,000 for a period of six months or less, although they can consider applications greater than this amount.
Eligible Activities
- Activities eligible for direct financial support include (but are not limited to):
- providing circumvention solutions during censorship events
- providing personal digital protection for online journalists, human rights defenders, NGOs, activists, and bloggers
- rapid development of tools or translations needed to respond adequately to emergencies
- developing centralized, mobile internet applications that can link computers as an independent network (mesh or delay-tolerant networks) and emergency patches
Eligibility Criteria
- If you’re an activist, journalist, human rights defender or other high-risk individual or organization facing a clear and time-sensitive digital emergency, then please apply.
- The Rapid Response Fund can’t provide support for projects that are long-term in nature or that aim to build digital security capacity among groups or organizations.
For more information, visit OTF.