I just need to vent for a minute and say that getting a grant approved by the NSF seems next to impossible. I originally built Pushshift from the ground up and met a lot of extremely talented developers that have helped the project get to where it is today. We have the
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capability of changing the game for researchers in numerous fields and we do it all on a very limited budget. For the life of me, I cannot understand why the NSF cannot understand the tremendous value that this project is for researchers in so many different areas of study. If
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the NSF even gave a grant of a quarter million dollars, we could expand the services we offer tenfold and move rapidly.
I'm not sure what I have to do to show the NSF that this is a project that is literally transformative in helping researchers better understand how social
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media affects our society. We will of course continue to apply for grants where available but I think the fundamental issue is that we just lack the understanding of how to put together a successful grant proposal.
/rant off
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Pushshift is immensely useful. Would love to see it grow 10 fold. There are other ways to fund beyond the usual NSF route (e.g. Foundations). A lot of NSF funding depends on peer reviews, how the proposal is written & rejections happen even with proposal scored as competitive.