Funding for 2011-2012

When we posted in January, we only had sufficient funding to survive until July this year. We're pleased to report that as well as the $21,200 in donations we have received from users (which includes the $9000 we mentioned in our last Donation Update), we have also acquired funding from several organisations.

 Adobe has contracted us to enhance NVDA's support for Adobe products and to provide consultation concerning accessibility implementation. NVDA improvements will include improved support for LiveCycle/XFA PDF documents, better support for UI Automation text controls such as the document area in Digital Editions and  automatic switching of synthesiser language in PDF and web documents. In addition, we will be working with Adobe to ensure that Digital Editions is accessible to NVDA users, as well as providing advice and feedback about the upcoming enhancements to Adobe Flash Player accessibility.

 Mozilla has  provided NV Access with a grant of US$80,000. This will enable us to improve our support for both  rich text editing and document browsing in Mozilla applications, including  reporting of textual formatting while browsing. We will also work closely with Mozilla to ensure that the renowned user experience for screen reader users continues as Firefox and other Mozilla applications rapidly move forward. Part of this grant will be used to support general NVDA development.

 Yahoo! has sponsored further enhancements to NVDA's support for ARIA. This includes  the ability to report the sorting of columns in tables, fixes to automatic focus mode switching for interactive controls such as grids, improved support for tab panels and  proper handling of web sites that include both application and document components. Primarily, this enables excellent access to the latest version of Yahoo! Mail, but will also benefit other web sites using this functionality.

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to these companies for their continued belief in and support of the NVDA project. Our thanks also go to everyone who has donated to NV Access this year.

On a final note, while we now have sufficient funding to continue to develop NVDA for just over a year, there is no guarantee of any funding beyond that. If you want to see NVDA continue to improve into the future, please donate if you are able. Thanks!