The world's first

Open Source
Endowment

Truly sustainable funding sustainable funding for critical OSS through a community‑driven endowment

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$692Kendowment fund

60total donors

43members ($1K+ donors)

Sustainable

Provides a stable, long-term funding model, independent of volatile corporate and personal budgets.

Systemic

Supports the critical but underfunded open source projects that conventional models miss.

Efficient

A lean, digital-first, community-led organization designed for maximum impact and transparency.

Trusted by open source creators, founders, executives, and investors

The global open-source community shares many parallels with how the best universities work, and we are thrilled to adopt their private endowment model to sustainably fund OSS maintainers.

Konstantin Vinogradov

ex-General Partner at Runa Capital

Open source underpins the critical infrastructure of the global tech ecosystem, and the community-driven Endowment is a wonderful initiative to pursue its long-term sustainability.

Mitchell Hashimoto

Co-founder, HashiCorp

The Open Source Endowment is so obvious in hindsight, it's high time we brought this model to bear on the Open Source sustainability crisis.

Chad Whitacre

Head of Open Source, Sentry

The Endowment is a very promising project. I am happy to join and pretty excited to see how it contributes to the FOSS funding ecosystem.

Kailash Nadh

CTO, Zerodha

I've been part of the OSS community for 20+ years, consistently reflecting on the huge and unfair imbalance between the value open source creates and its sustainability. The Endowment is an efficient way to give back and address this issue.

Maxim Konovalov

Co-founder, Nginx

Keeping open source sustainable is a global challenge, and the Open Source Endowment provides a very promising long-term way to fund essential yet non-commercializable OSS. I'm excited to support it as a founding donor.

Jan Oberhauser

Founder & CEO, n8n

Solving Open Source Sustainability Together

Our world runs on open source software that is mostly built and maintained by unpaid volunteers. Unstable funding of critical OSS poses serious risks for all of us.

This xkcd comic shows a Jenga-like tower of blocks, illustrating "all modern digital infrastructure". The structure precariously rests on a small load-bearing block, titled "a project some random person in Nebraska has been thanklessly maintaining since 2003".

>95%

software depends on OSS

500+

OSS dependencies in an average app

Problem Critical but Fragile Infrastructure

Maintainer burnout and lack of funding often lead to bugs and serious security incidents, as seen with Log4Shell, the XZ Utils backdoor, and Heartbleed. The unsustainable state of OSS financing makes critical infrastructure more fragile and puts our world at ever-growing risk.

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Solution OSS Community Endowment

Successfully used by leading universities for centuries, endowments spend only investment returns from donations to advance their causes, weathering economic and political volatility.

We are building a community-led endowment fund that leverages "open source alumni" to sustainably fund the most critical OSS projects. It is an open nonprofit, and everybody is welcome to join — every contribution matters.

Next-gen Nonprofit,
Based on Principles

Data-Driven & SMART Goals

Employs a data-driven, goal-based strategy, ensuring every donation makes a measurable difference.

Global Outlook

Supports the long-term health of the global open source supply chain, not of specific countries, companies, or ecosystems.

Maximum Transparency

Provides open data, public governance processes, and clear accountability in all funding decisions and operations.

Inclusive & Diverse Governance

Empowers the community to shape key strategic decisions with a focus on individuals over companies.

Decentralized Funding

A broad funding base from diverse sources makes every contribution meaningful and fosters community governance.

Neutrality

Remains independent from political or corporate influence, ensuring unbiased, mission-driven funding for the public good.

How It Works

1

Fundraising

Individuals, companies, and foundations donate to the Open Source Endowment, forming its permanent principal, which is preserved in perpetuity.

Individuals, companies and foundations donate money

2

Investing

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.

3

Grantmaking

We distribute grants based on open, data-driven inputs, and our model is co-developed with the Endowment's Members and the open source community.

4

Impact Tracking

Supported projects are tracked for accountability, refining strategy, and maximizing OSE's positive impact. The grantmaking model is continuously refined.