San Jose is in the running to win a large sum of money that will go to making the city a more interesting and vibrant place.

The city is one of 26 so-called “Knight Communities,” eligible to win a chunk of $5 million from The Knight Foundation  to put toward improvements.

The Knight Foundation pours $5 million into their third annual Knight Cities Challenge.

In April, the Knight Foundation awarded Justin Triano, founder of East Side bicycling group, $100,000 to create a night market on Post Street and liven up the atmosphere in the alleyway. Little Portugal’s Mexican Heritage Plaza also benefited from the foundation’s generosity, gaining $100,000 to hire a coordinator to plan folk life events to attract more people to the neighborhood. Read about both efforts here.

This year, the Knight Foundation wants to see a project that hits three key areas organizers say contribute to a successful city—attracting and retaining talent, increasing economic opportunity and promoting civic engagement.

The Knight Foundation has been helping the San Jose community for years, but stepped up their charity game when they donated nearly $1.9 million to the city in 2014.

SPUR, a nonprofit organization, planned $1.7 million for projects in San Jose and promised to help the “suburban-to-urban transformation.” With more residents flooding into Silicon Valley than Oakland or San Francisco, the money was used to enhance public transportation with the aim of accommodating more people and

There are 17 San Jose arts groups that support dance, theater and art installations throughout the city—they received $630,000. A few examples of gripping projects that the money funded were an animated opera, Bless Me, Ultima, and an LED installation by Jim Campbell, a Bay Area local.

The Knight Foundation calls this spending “risk capital”—and will be paying close attention to how the money is used to see if something that works in one community might work in others.

All submissions to this year’s Knight Cities Challenge are due by Monday, October 10 at knightcities.org.