There are different levels of grant in civic and political tech funding, broadly across this range. Each buys something qualitatively different, not just ten times more. I've run and advised projects at all of these scales. And it has changed less than you may think.

• £10k gets you enough of your time and a bit of support to create a proof of concept and validate it with users, and hopefully gets you in a position to seek the next tranche of funding
• £100k could just about get you to paying customers and a sustainable tool if your plans suit that model, and if not to generate some history to build the next fundraising round on
• £1m allows you to build out an organisation, sustainability plans, partnerships, and so on - but it's still only a small team for a few years and you need a plan for what comes next and what your endgame is

The acceleration of development has had a big impact on the early stage: you can get to real users and proving real value sooner. But ongoing maintenance overheads, the imperative to continue evolving, and the pains of scaling up are still real.

Happy to speak to you about a project you're considering. Useful sub-questions: what outcomes should you promise before the money runs out? How much goes to external support vs your own team? At what point do partners matter more than headcount?

Reading/links

• JRRT grants awarded - one of the few funders of explicitly political (non-charitable) tech; browse what real grants look like
• Dovetail briefs - scoped nonprofit tech projects with budgets attached
• GrantNav (360Giving) - search actual UK grants data to calibrate your ask
• What's your endgame? (SSIR) - the different "exits" for a nonprofit