Hello, I started donating to my favourite open-source projects a couple years ago, but stopped about 6 months ago for different reasons and wanted to get back into it.
I wanted to ask if anyone here has a set system or process they follow when donating
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How much money do you donate? A set amount, whatever you feel like, a percentage of your earnings?
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When do you donate? Whenever you remember, on the first of the month, Thursdays?
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Do you have a minimum donation amount?
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How do you decide what projects to support? Do you forego donations if you’ve contributed in other ways? Do you keep a list?
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Do you donate to all equally or do you have some sort of ranking? Is it by amount of use, subjective preference, something else?
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What platforms do you prefer using? Liberapay, Opencollective, Patreon, ko-fi, Paypal, Monero, actual post?
So far the system I’ve devised for myself would go something like:
- put 2 % of all my earnings, whatever they are, in a separate account
- every quarter (on the first of January, April, July and October) donate the full amount of money in the account (with a minimum of 5 €, so as not to lose a big amount in fees)
- keep a ranked list of projects that I’ve used or deemed important or promising in the last three months (projects I donated to recently go to the bottom of the list), things at the top get more money than things at the bottom
- prioritise Liberapay since it’s open-source itself
Hey there! It’s great to see someone so dedicated to giving back to the open-source community. I think your system is pretty solid and well thought out! Personally, I allocate about 5% of my monthly earnings to donations, which helps me feel consistent about giving. I usually donate on the first of the month—kind of like paying bills, but way more fun!
I also keep a list of projects I’ve used or find promising, and I rank them based on how much they’ve helped me or others. Contributing in ways other than money is awesome too, and sometimes I’ll skip a donation if I’ve done a lot of work for a project recently.
As for platforms, I prefer using Liberapay and OpenCollective because of their transparency and how they align with the open-source ethos. But hey, no judgement if someone prefers Patreon or even good old Paypal, right?
Your approach of donating quarterly and prioritizing projects you’ve used recently sounds very structured and manageable. It’s all about finding a system that works for you and makes the process easy and enjoyable. Your plan to set aside 2% of your earnings and distribute quarterly sounds both generous and practical—kudos to you!
Keep up the fantastic work and thanks for supporting open source!
Are there any foundations that distribute donations to various FOSS projects?
Time for me to make a new excel sheet it sounds like. I have no idea what I’ve given or what I’m giving to regularly 😬
I’m not quite that organized,
I’ve donated around 2 euros to huge projects like Wikipedia when they have a donation campaign, or 20 euros to projects like draw.io when I notice on github that they haven’t met their monthly goal yet.
The amount and frequency completely depends on my financial situation at the time and I only donate when I am using a piece of software/project (so when I remember, basically) on my free time and decide to check updates/state of the project.
So I’m not a frequent donor to any specific projects and several months may pass without donating any money, but when I have a bit more disposable income and when I’m doing free-time computer related hobbies I take a sum (lets say 50e) and distribute that money depending on project size. Smaller projects get more (less likely to have a lot of donors) big projects less (hopefully they have a lot of people donating small amounts that add up).
Smaller projects get more (less likely to have a lot of donors) big projects less (hopefully they have a lot of people donating small amounts that add up).
This is what I’ve been thinking of doing. It’s also possible that big projects have bigger reserves they can rely on and be able to mobilise donors should they be in need of a money injection
I’ve only done it for a year now, but I’m giving CHF 100.- (around 100$) equally shared between all the open source projects I’m using a lot.
I keep a list to remember all of them and I update it every year.
And then I’m adapting to the platform they use to get money.
