Back in May, following the passage of the fiscal year 2017 Omnibus Appropriations bill by Congress, we discussed what the newfound landscape for our Fiscal Year 2017 (FY17) funding looked like. At that time, we noted that a number of changes occurred to the underlying internet freedom language and our internal staff funding. We also promised to provide an update once our funding level for FY17 had been finalized.
Following approval of our budget by Congress, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) CEO and the BBG Board, OTF received a total of $8.4 million. This represents an increase of $900,000 over FY16.
* Please note that funding amounts for FY15 shown in this chart include funds rolled over from FY14.
It also represents 56% of the total BBG budget for internet freedom, which is an increase over the 50% we have historically received, as shown in the following chart.
OTF has a number of different funding mechanisms (see our different funds, fellowship programs, and labs) through which projects and individuals working on vital, innovative, and novel internet freedom efforts can receive support. If you are working on an internet freedom-related project and need support, we encourage you to apply. If you are unfamiliar with OTF, you can review our mission and focus areas here.
We look forward to reporting on how our FY17 budget is utilized to combat the rise of internet censorship and repressive surveillance globally in our 2017 annual report. You can find past annual reports on our results page.