Provides a stable, long-term funding model, independent of the volatility of traditional support.
Supports the critical but underfunded projects that conventional models miss.
A lean, digital-first, community-led organization designed for maximum impact and transparency.
The modern world runs on software, and more than 95% of its code depends on open source software. This critical infrastructure is built and maintained by mostly unpaid volunteers contributing in whatever spare time they have.
Maintainer burnout and lack of funding often lead to catastrophic security incidents, as seen with Log4Shell, the XZ Utils backdoor and Heartbleed. The unsustainable state of OSS financing makes the global software supply chain fragile and puts our world at ever-growing risk.
Our solution: the endowment model. Successfully implemented by the world's leading universities and nonprofit institutions, endowments aggregate donations in a permanent fund and spend only investment returns to advance their causes. This creates a stable financial foundation designed to weather economic and political volatility across decades.
We are building the first implementation of this model for open source software, and invite you to join this mission.
Open source is the world's largest public institution, operating much like a global, decentralized university. Over 150 million people on GitHub alone learn, create, and share together, in a unique collaborative and social environment.
The Open Source Endowment (OSE) is a lasting solution to efficiently sustaining this vital institution. It leverages a funding model proven to work by leading universities and cultural organizations for centuries.
Members. OSE is guided by the Members' Club — the open community of individuals who donate at least $1,000 per year. They have legal rights to take part in strategic matters, such as selecting the grantmaking model and appointing community directors to the OSE board.
Directors. OSE is strategically managed by its Board of Directors, with operations managed by its Executive Director. By design, all directors at OSE must also be Members.
Donate $1,000+ to join as a Member›Data guides our goal-based strategy, ensuring every donation makes a measurable difference.
Supports the long-term health of the global open source supply chain, not of specific countries or ecosystems.
Provides open data, public governance processes, and clear accountability in all funding decisions and operations.
Empowers the community to shape key strategic decisions with a focus on individuals over companies.
A broad funding base from diverse sources makes every contribution meaningful and fosters community governance.
Remains independent from political or corporate influence, ensuring unbiased, mission-driven funding for the public good.
Individuals, companies, and foundations donate to the Open Source Endowment, forming its permanent principal, which is not spent.
The endowment principal is invested in a low-risk portfolio that generates sustainable annual returns. We target a ~5% spend rate, typical for U.S. universities.
We distribute grants based on open, data-driven inputs and our model, co-developed with the OSE Members and in consultation with the open source community.
Supported projects are tracked for accountability, refining strategy, and maximizing OSE's positive impact. The grantmaking model is iteratively improved.
General Partner at Runa Capital ($0.5B+ AUM), who focuses on early-stage OSS investments. Previously co‑founded an endowment which grew from $50K to $600K+ in 12 months. Publishes the ROSS Index, a quarterly data-driven rating of top open source startups.
Head of Open Source at application monitoring platform Sentry (used by 4M+ developers) and the leader of the Open Source Pledge, a cultural initiative to get companies to pay open source maintainers. Founded OSS funding pioneer Gratipay (2012–2018).
Program Manager at NumFOCUS, a nonprofit foundation supporting scientific OSS such as Pandas. Co-Founder of SciOS and the The Institute of Open Science Practices, focusing on sustainable open science.
Chief Fundraising Officer at the OpenSSL Foundation and former Director of the Wikipedia Endowment. Served as Director of Individual Giving at the Smithsonian and the New York Public Library
Maintainer of the Open Source Pledge. Core developer of OSS funding service thanks.dev. Helped build software used by the Gates Foundation to allocate $1B in healthcare funding.
Looking to contribute to the Open Source Endowment? We'd love to chat. Contact us!
