What makes a MATC nominee more competitive?
The Award Committee makes the MATC selections, and they are free to decide as they choose within the general guidelines of the awards, so we cannot spell out any magic formula for MATC success. With that said, here are some characteristics that tend to make projects fit better with the aims of the MATC awards. • If the project serves one or more of the key Mellon constituencies: higher education, especially the arts and humanities; libraries; museums; arts organizations; and nature conservation. Serving more of these constituencies is better. Serving other constituencies as well (e.g., K-12 education, human rights, civic advocacy, etc.) is a plus, too, but only if the project meaningfully serves one of the key Mellon constituencies as well. Thus, Linux as a project is not a particularly good MATC candidate, because it is hard to make the case that anything about Linux uniquely intends to serve the constituencies that Mellon cares most about. • If the project has a large and thriving us
