My suggestion is to apply for the OTF grant focusing on the point highlighted by @thadguidry. I can draft it based on my answer to the previous applications.
Regarding the budget we need for the coming year, I went back to looking at the unsuccessful EOSS-6 grant application, which includes a budget for general maintenance of the project.
If we discard activities to develop new features or add capabilities, we have the following:
A developer position, part-time (0.5 full-time equivalent) budgeted at USD 90,000 per year to
- maintain the OpenRefine GitHub repository,
- triage tickets,
- review pull requests,
- publish releases,
- respond to security advisories,
- participate in internship programs.
- perform some bug fixes and light new feature development
One project manager, part time about 10h/week budgeted at USD26,000 per year as defined in the previous job posting.
Some extra for occasional contractors, travel, and recurring Barcamp: ~USD20,000 per year
That's a total of USD136,000 per year.
Adding a 15% CS&S management fee represents about USD 160,000 of new cash per year.