The Pizzigati Prize

The Pizzigati Prize for Software in the Public Interest honors the life and legacy of Antonio “Tony” Pizzigati, an early advocate of open source computing. Tony never had a chance to fulfill his computing dreams, so the prize was created to help others realize theirs. The Pizzigati Prize celebrates open-source projects that power nonprofit impact and offers cash grants to help continue their work.

Building community and funding open-source tools for nonprofits

The Pizzigati Prize provides grants to developers making a two-faceted contribution to social change.

First, they've had an important practical impact, creating software that helps nonprofits more effectively serve their communities. Second, against the idea that progress demands competition between people striving to get ever richer, these developers instead model a key principle of the open source movement: We all benefit when we work together. In the continuing struggle for a better world, this commitment to social impact, collaboration, and sharing is what the Pizzigati Prize celebrates.

In addition to cash grants, the prize provides publicity for achievements crucial to social progress and also enhances the stature of public interest computing and people's understanding of it.

Along the way, this prize links public interest software developers with each other and with the nonprofit and advocacy groups that so strongly need their assistance.

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Apply for the 2025 Prize

Applications are now open for the 2025 Prize. Use the embedded application form below to describe your open source project and the impact it is making in communities anywhere around the world.

Community impact

The application requires community feedback on your project to support our evaluation priority on projects already making an impact. You will be asked to include the contact information of 2-5 people who can provide a statement about your project and its development or impact. They can be participants in the development, end users of the product, organizations that used the project, or community members impacted by the services and programs of the organizations where the product is in use. They'll be asked to share their experience, so make sure you select people familiar enough with the project to comment.

As you prepare your application, consider informing your referrals that they will be receiving an email about your project.

If you are a referrer, you can share your community feedback here.

Award selection

The Pizzigati Prize celebrates software developers who create, for free public distribution, open source apps and tools that nonprofit and advocacy groups can put to good use.

We welcome applications from individuals, teams, and organizations that have developed an easily available software product that qualifies as open source, as defined by the Open Source Initiative. This software must have demonstrated its value to at least one nonprofit and the communities it serves, and be of potential value to multiple other nonprofits.

Applicants are evaluated on a range of criteria, including demonstrated impact, equitable access, and strength of community. A committee that includes veteran public interest computing activists selects the prize recipients.

Timeline

• December 16, 2024: Applications open.
• February 24, 2025: Applications due.
• February 28: Community feedback due.
• March 14: Applicants notified.
• April 16–18: Recipients announced at the Nonprofit Technology Conference.

Get inspired by past recipients

About Tony Pizzigati

Born in 1971, Antonio “Tony” Pizzigati jumped into the world of computers early on. At the age of 10, he programmed his first computer and, at 14, helped CISPES, the group that led opposition to Reagan-era U.S. policy in Central America, straighten out its database.

Tony would go on to earn a computer science degree from MIT and work at the world-famous MIT Media Lab and later the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science. When only a very few people knew about the new universe called the World Wide Web, Tony was among the earliest web authors. After moving to California in 1994, he built a name for himself in Silicon Valley as a software consultant.

Tony died the following spring in a car crash.

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