Announcing the H1 2026 Grants
We are excited to announce the recipients of the GraphQL Foundation’s H1 2026 community grants! These grants are awarded to individuals whose work meaningfully advances the GraphQL ecosystem.
After a review and vote by the GraphQL TSC, three projects have been selected for a combined total of $18,000 in funding.
We received a number of strong proposals, and we are grateful to everyone who took the time to submit one. If your proposal wasn’t selected, we encourage you to submit another one in the next cycle, priorities and funding will change and we’d love to help anyhow we can.
That being said, we are excited to announce the following projects have been selected:
GraphiQL 6 — Trevor Scheer ($10,000)
GraphiQL is one of GraphQL’s most beloved tools — for many developers, it’s their first hands-on experience with the language. Trevor is using this grant to build GraphiQL 6, which includes a full redesign as well as new features.
A complete visual redesign of GraphiQL will give it a fresh and modern look and feel. If you want a sneak peek of what’s coming up, follow the discussion on GitHub.
On top of that, the GraphiQL query builder will become a first-party feature, allowing users to build their operations in just a few clicks. It has long existed as a third-party plugin and was a long-requested feature.
Additionally, Trevor is building Operation Collections, allowing users to save and organize queries inside GraphiQL, bringing it in line with other popular GraphQL IDEs.
GraphQL.js maintenance — Yaacov Rydzinski ($3,000)
graphql-js is a cornerstone of the GraphQL ecosystem. As both a reference implementation and main JavaScript runtime, graphql-js powers a huge chunk of the GraphQL ecosystem.
Yaacov Rydzinski has been an active and valued contributor and maintainer of graphql-js for years, and this grant supports him to continue that critical work throughout 2026.
As this post is being written, graphql-js 17 is being released, and we are grateful for Yaacov to lead that effort and release the first major release in 4 years.
Interactive GraphQL tutorial — Alec Aivazis ($5,000)
Learning GraphQL can be daunting for newcomers, and the existing tutorials are often too static or using outdated patterns. Alec Aivazis is building an up-to-date, interactive, tutorial for learning GraphQL from the ground up, assuming zero prior GraphQL experience.
The goal is a hands-on, in-browser experience that teaches core GraphQL concepts directly, using 2026 defaults for building a full-stack application.
Alec has experience building intuitive software with top-notch developer experience, and we’re excited to have him contribute the GraphQL tutorials.
Thank You
A big thank you to everyone who submitted a grant proposal in H1 2026. The quality and variety of submissions this year was genuinely impressive, and we’re grateful for the energy the community continues to bring to making GraphQL better for everyone.
The GraphQL Foundation’s grant program is ongoing. Stay tuned for a new round of grants as we enter the second half of 2026! In the meantime, should you have any questions or feedback, make sure to reach out on Discord, channel #community-wg, as in “community working group”!
Happy GraphQLing!