Rising Voices, the outreach arm of Global Voices, is now accepting project proposals for microgrant funding of up to $5,000 for new media outreach projects. Ideal applicants will present innovative and detailed proposals to teach citizen media techniques to communities in the developing world that are poorly positioned to discover and take advantage of tools like blogging, video-blogging, and podcasting on their own.

For those of you new to our community, please have a look at this end-of-the-year report to understand how and why Rising Voices came into being and where we plan on taking things in 2009.

I’ve received many inquiries over the past couple weeks asking whether or not projects based in the United States can apply for Rising Voices microgrants. As an initiative of Global Voices, these grants are really intended for communities based in the developing world. However, there is good news. Our friends at J-Lab are currently accepting proposals for grants up to $25,000 for citizen media projects based in the United States. Applications are on February 12.