"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.
APPENDIX: Contributing to this guide // License & attribution
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*"personal effort" notes when a funding effort was led by an individual, not a project
Stick a donation button on your site. Stripe and PayPal are examples of services you can use to accept donations.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 publisher (like O'Reilly) or self-publish. In addition to selling books, some projects sell merchandise (ex. shirts, hoodies) to support their work.
If your project has a large audience, you can sell sponsorships to advertisers who might want to reach them. You probably have a very targeted audience (ex. if you have a Python project, you can assume your audience is likely people who are technically familiar with Python), so use that to your advantage.
Companies sometimes hire individuals to do open source work. Find a company that uses the project you want to work on. Often this is a split arrangement (ex. 50% company work, 50% open source work). Alternatively, if you have an idea for a new project, find a company that would be interested in using what you produce. In these situations, having demonstrated experience you can point to will be very helpful.
Many open source projects started as employee side projects. The project might eventually outgrow the company, but starting it as a side project can be a great way to incubate the idea.
If you pursue this path, make sure you understand your company's policy on open source work. Some companies encourage employees to contribute to open source during working hours. Some might treat your open source work as a company project. Don't assume anything; ask someone at your company before starting.
Grants are monetary gifts that do not require repayment. Oftentimes the grantmaker receives other benefits from giving you the grant, such as access to you, demonstration of impact, a report of your work, or tax benefits.
Grants can come from many places, including companies, software foundations, philanthropic foundations, and the government. The technical and legal aspects of a grant vary greatly depending on where it comes from. For example, a company might give you a "grant" but legally treat it as a consulting invoice. A philanthropic foundation can only make grants to nonprofits, so you would need to be a nonprofit yourself, or (more commonly) find a nonprofit to sponsor you. If you're unfamiliar with grants, the best way to understand how grants work is to talk to someone who has received one before. Some examples of grant recipients are listed below.
Consulting can be a flexible way to fund open source work. You have more freedom to structure your time as you wish (for example, consulting 30 hrs of the week and spending 10 hrs of the week on open source work). Consultants can usually charge more for their time than salaried employees because the work is less steady, they don't receive benefits, etc. If you plan on doing this type of work regularly, you will probably want to set up an LLC (or equivalent outside of the US).
If your project is popular, you can also offer consulting & services around the project itself. For example, a client might pay you to implement the project for them, build something custom, or train them on how to use it.
In this model, the code is freely available, but users need to pay to receive support from the project's maintainers. That might mean charging for access to the issue tracker, office hours, a community Slack, or an SLA (service-level agreement).
SaaS means Software as a Service. In this model, the codebase itself can remain open source, but you offer paid services such as charging for use of a main hosted site or for handling the hosting of dedicated instances for customers. Typically, paying customers also get priority support.
Companies selling proprietary software prefer to include permissively licensed code (such as MIT or Apache 2.0) rather than copyleft licensed code (like the GPL) in their software, because the latter requires them to keep the same copyleft terms for their end products. So, some open source projects use a copyleft license by default, but they sell license exceptions, proprietary licenses, or permissive commercial licenses to companies who want to bypass the copyleft requirements.
Under an open core model, some aspects of the project are free, but other features are proprietary and available only to paid users. Usually this works when there is enterprise demand for the project.
A foundation is a legal entity that can accept and/or disburse donations. Because their purpose is not to make profits, they can be a great choice to signal neutrality and steward a project. In the US, foundations are either 501(c)(3) (nonprofit) or 501(c)(6) (trade consortium). Many software foundations are 501(c)(6) because 501(c)(3) require demonstrating a charitable purpose, which can be more difficult in software.
Venture capital is a form of funding for high growth businesses. Unlike a bank loan or other forms of debt financing, venture capitalists take equity (a percent ownership in your business) in exchange for funding. Unlike taking out a loan, you don't have to repay your creditors if your business tanks. If you do succeed, however, you should expect to return capital to your investor at a multiple.
Venture capital is "high risk high reward": VCs are more risk tolerant than banks, but they also expect a large payoff if you are successful. If you plan on raising venture capital, you should set up a business entity structured as a C Corp, preferably in Delaware. If you're unfamiliar with the venture capital process, the best place to start is by reaching out to similar founders who have successfully raised venture.
Restricted licenses (reminiscent of the older shareware movement) are not open source because they do not meet the definition of an open source license. The source code is made available (either publicly, or to customers who pay for a license), but they may limit the freedoms to redistribute and modify or to use the software commercially.
I wrote up this guide to aggregate my own knowledge. I recognize the pros/cons are somewhat subjective, but they reflect my views. If you submit changes, I may consider them but do not intend to cover everyone's viewpoints.
If something is factually incorrect (especially with a case study example), I welcome your edits. Case studies are organized alphabetically within each category. Also, if there's a category you know of that I missed, I would also welcome that addition.
This guide is available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 License, meaning you are free to use it for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, without any attribution back to me (public domain). If you do use it, I'd love to hear about it! (Find me here: @nayafia) But you are in no way required to do so.