I’m taking advantage of the new FLOSS.fund standards to refresh our sponsorship approach and prepare for our first year-end campaign. Below is an overview of the plan and how you can help. This is still early, so your feedback is welcome. My goal is to submit to FLOSS.fund soon and kick off the fundraising campaign during the 2025 Barcamp.
1. About FLOSS.fund
FLOSS.fund has committed US $1 million per year to open-source projects. They have already distributed $325 000 in 2025 so far (May update).
They’ve released a machine-readable JSON format (funding.json spec) for project funding needs. By adopting this spec we can
- Apply to the FLOSS.fund
- Provides a reusable, standardized way for any OSS project to advertise needs and channels
- Lists OpenRefine in their public directory, so we are discoverable to other funders
2. Revisiting Our Sponsorship Tiers
Inspired by the FLOSS.fund model, we worked with Lila Jane (CS&S fundraising consultant) to tie each GitHub Sponsors tier to specific, actionable outcomes, so donors know exactly what impact their gift unlocks. We identified
- Micro-gifts ($1 to$100): pay for basic infrastructure (domain name, apple certificate) and software licenses (figma, discourse).
- Mid-level ($500 to $1,000): fund conferences and community outreach
- Corporate/Foundation ($2,500 to $10,000+): underwrite the core team support, with clear value propositions and recognition
All donations are unrestricted, these uses are illustrative, not spending commitments. You can review the suggested new tier in the PR or the Google Document listed below.
3. Website & GitHub Updates
I've open add funding.json and backer page by magdmartin · Pull Request #466 · OpenRefine/openrefine.org · GitHub to update the website with
- A new Backers page to thank our current sponsors
- A live funding.json manifest and .well-known endpoint for automated discovery for the floss.fund application
- Updated text on the funding and donate page.
You can review and comment on the proposed changes to the GitHub sponsor page here. The goal is to maintain consistency in language and tier across the three interfaces (website, funding.json, and GitHub sponsor).
4. Running the giving campaign
As you may know, the funding landscape underwent a significant shift in 2025, and with the Advisory Committee, we aim to increase the level of funding received through unrestricted donations and reduce our reliance on a handful of major donors. As of today, we are seeking to raise USD 50,000 to close our fiscal year budget, which runs from July 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026.
I will re-engage later this summer with more details about running the giving campaign. At a high level, I am looking to get community consensus for
- A Social-media and email outreach
- A banner on our website and forum
- A Potential in-app banner
Feedback is welcome here in the thread, on the PR, or in the Google Doc.