YouTube Tries To Boost Production Budgets With $5 Million Grant Program http://bit.ly/9Q2nVF
As they say:
The goal of YouTube Partner Grants is to act as a catalyst by infusing additional funds into the production budgets of a small group of YouTube partners who are at the forefront of innovation. Funds from YouTube Partner Grants will serve as an advance against the partner’s future YouTube revenue share. This additional funding can allow partners to invest in better cameras, achieve higher production quality, expand their marketing efforts, expand their staff, or just hire more talent. Anything that will help them evolve their art, business, and ultimately the entire creator community. We look at this as an investment that will bring an even richer body of content for our users and advertisers and raise the creative bar for online video.
So it’s more of an advance on advertising revenue than a grant, but still, it should help that “select group” to improve their product.