Reddit is expanding the Reddit Community Funds program and it plans to spend $1 million funding various projects across the platform.

 

Reddit Community Funds Program

 

In its announcement, Reddit said: “We will invite communities to submit ideas for projects, events, contests, giving, almost anything you can think of to bring people together for inspiration and delight.” With that said, the projects can ask for between $1,000 and $50,000, and Reddit will start issuing grants in June.

In a way, the Reddit Community Funds program is the version of the creator funds that Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, and, well, pretty much everybody has been offering to people using their platforms. And, in that sense, Reddit’s commitment here is pretty small: Facebook pledged to spend $1 billion on creator-related funding, and Snap was at one point throwing $1 million a day at the things people were making on the platform. There are a lot of places to make things online, and one way to get them to make them for you is to back a dump truck full of money up to their house!

 

Ginning Up Interest in Projects

 

The money surely helps gin up interest in those projects (and, by extension, gets more people using Reddit) but in a slightly more circuitous way than your average “thanks for going viral, here’s some money!” creator fund.

Though it might also be a way for Reddit to create its own kind of viral hits; those BTS billboards were big news, for instance, and a win for Reddit and its community-first story. For a company often thought of as a place for trolls, memestockers, and assholes, every heartwarming story about a cool community doing cool work is a big win. It’s going to be fascinating to see which kinds of projects Reddit funds in the Reddit Community Funds program.

 

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