Sustainability Plan Template
A sustainability plan answers what happens to the dataset after the grant ends. Datasets that plan for this keep living; those that do not quietly die. Funders increasingly ask for one, and it is worth writing for your own sake regardless.
When to use this template
At project design, to think it through early, and again at the end of a grant, to put it into action.
What this plan covers
Who stewards the data after the funding ends, where it lives, how it is maintained and updated, and how the work is resourced.
Part 1. Project and dataset overview: [what the dataset is and who it serves].
Part 2. Stewardship and governance after the grant: decision rights and day-to-day stewardship pass to [named community body or institution].
Part 3. Hosting and access: the dataset will remain available at [stable host, e.g. Hugging Face, Zenodo, institutional] with [a stable identifier].
Part 4. Community maintenance and update process: errors and updates are handled through [issue tracker / forum], with [who] responsible for responding.
Part 5. Translation and localization pipeline: if the resource is to grow to new languages or varieties, the process for that is [described here].
Part 6. Funding and resource strategy beyond the grant: ongoing costs are met by [institutional support / follow-on funding / in-kind community effort].
Part 7. Risk and contingency: key risks are [e.g. host shutdown, loss of key people], mitigated by [plans].
Part 8. Milestones and review schedule: the plan is reviewed [cadence].
Sustainability is the lifecycle question seen from the funding side. It connects directly to Maintenance and Community.