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A handy guide to financial support for open source. "I do open source work, how do I find funding?" This document aims to provide an exhaustive list of all the ways that people get paid for open source work. Hopefully, projects and contributors will find this helpful in figuring out the best options for them. The list below is roughly ordered from small to large. Each funding category links to several real examples (using topical articles or pages wherever possible instead of just a project's homepage.) The categories are not mutually exclusive. For example, a project might have a foundation but also use crowdfunding to raise money. Someone else might do consulting and also have a donation button. Etc. Table of Contents Donation button Bounties Sponsorware Crowdfunding (one-time) Crowdfunding (recurring) Books and merchandise Advertising & sponsorships Get hired by a company to work on project Start a project while currently employed Grants Consulting Paid support SaaS Copyleft + paid license Open core Foundations & consortiums Venture capital Restricted license APPENDIX: Contributing to this guide // License & attribution TRANSLATIONS: Traditional Chinese(繁體中文) // Simplified Chinese(簡體中文) // Italian(italiano) // Japanese(日本語) // Russian(русский) // Bulgarian(български) *"personal effort" notes when a funding effort was led by an individual, not a project Donation button Stick a donation button on your site. Stripe and PayPal are examples of services you can use to accept donations. Pros Few strings attached Little work involved: "set it and forget it" Cons Usually not much money unless you have dedicated fundraising efforts Need an entity to accept donations, which may take a fee for doing so. Examples are Stripe and PayPal. To make donations tax-free for the person/organization who is donating, may need a legally charitable entity (in the United States, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit entity) to accept donations. Software Freedom Conservancy and NumFOCUS are examples. Harder for individuals or international donations to manage Sometimes not clear who “deserves” money in a project or how it gets distributed. An entity like OpenCollective may help with this. Case Studies ChatSecure Git Transmission Twisted Bounties Sometimes, projects or companies post bounties for open source work (ex. "fix this bug and collect $100"). There are several websites, listed below, that help facilitate the posting and collection of bounties. Pros Open to community participation Money is tied to doing specific work (more like paying for service than donations) Especially popular for security work Cons Can create perverse incentives in a project (low quality PRs, distracting priorities) Conflicts can arise over whether work fulfills a bounty Usually not much money per bounty (~<$500) Doesn’t provide recurring revenue Case Studies Gitcoin GitHub Bug Bounty Program Google Patch Rewards Inkscape's "funded development" system Internet Bug Bounty IssueHunt Sponsorware If you'd like to open source a project but want to ensure that others will invest in its long-term maintenance, you could tell your community that you'll open source the project once you've hit a certain amount of sponsorship. (Writer Tim Carmody refers to this as "unlocking the commons.") This is similar to Crowdfunding (one-time) described below, except that instead of funding the work in advance, you build the software from the get-go, then choose whether or not to open source it depending on whether you hit your goal. Pros Can be a recurring source of revenue after initial development, depending on how you set up the conditions of releasing the project It can be a useful signal as to whether people value the package Gives people immediate value – people can sponsor you and get access to the package right away Doesn’t restrict future potential growth of the project and upholds the spirit of open source Cons Doesn't work for projects that are already released Likely only works for eye-catching projects where a demo or proof-of-concept is very exciting Case Studies Caleb Porzio's sushi package Crowdfunding (one-time) If you have a specific idea you'd like to implement (rather than ongoing project work), a one-time crowdfunding campaign can help raise the funds you need. Both individuals and companies might be willing to donate to your campaign. Pros Few strings attached Can be easier for an individual to legally manage via, e.g. Kickstarter Cons Lots of work involved to market campaign Usually has to be tied to concrete outcome, perks Usually not that much money (~$50K for one time) Companies are not always comfortable donating to campaigns Case Studies Andrew Godwin + Django (personal effort) Dave Gandy + Font Awesome GDAL Coordinate System Barn Raising Monero Community Crowdfunding System (CCS) RESTful WP-CLI Crowdfunding (recurring) If you'd like to fund ongoing project work, you can set up a recurring crowdfunding campaign, with a monthly or annual financial commitment that renews indefinitely (or until the donor cancels). Those who use your project regularly (including both individuals and companies) might be willing to fund your work. Pros Few strings attached Can be easier for an individual to legally manage via, e.g. Patreon, Liberapay, OpenCollective Cons Harder to get commitments to recurring donations (often requires preexisting brand/reputation) Harder to explain concrete outcomes, perks that come with recurring donations Usually not that much money (~$1-4K monthly) Companies are not always comfortable donating to campaigns Case Studies Babel Caleb Porzio + Laravel Livewire and more Clojurists Together Eran Hammer + hapi Patreon ESLint Evan You + Vue.js Patreon GnuPG Ruby Together Tom Christie + Django REST framework (personal effort) webpack Books and merchandise If you are an expert in a domain that other people might find useful to learn about, you could write and sell a book or series of books. You can find a