[Microsoft FOSS Fund](https://github.com/microsoft/foss-fund) is one of the many ways the company supports the open source ecosystem that we all depend upon for so much. Every quarter the company's FOSS Fund typically awards $30,000 USD split across 1-5 projects in order of most-voted. Past recipients include [LLVM](https://llvm.org/), [Debian](https://www.debian.org/), [serde](https://github.com/SparcLab/OpenSERDES), [YAML](https://yaml.org/), [mermaid.js](https://mermaid.js.org/), and [NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access)](https://www.nvaccess.org/). Projects have used the funding for everything from paying for security audits to hiring graphic designers to create logos.

In this article we'll explore:

-   How Microsoft taps employees to identify projects to fund

-   What you should consider when building your own open source funding program

Building bridges to the open source community
---------------------------------------------

The FOSS Fund, inspired by [Duane O'Brien](https://www.linkedin.com/in/duaneobrien/), was established by Microsoft's open source program office (OSPO) in 2019 and made its first sponsorships to open source projects in 2020.  Projects are identified through  employee nomination and voted on by employees who have contributed to open source in some way in the last few months. Microsoft is able to tap into the knowledge and passion employees have for their dependencies as both an opportunity to support those projects, but also to build awareness of impact, need and advocacy beyond any one project. Now Microsoft is one of many companies participating in the [FOSS Funders group](https://fossfunders.com/).

"Microsoft's FOSS Fund helps us build connections between Microsoft employees and open source communities," says Microsoft Open Source Programs Office Principal TPM Emma Irwin. "Being able to evaluate dependencies for sponsorship, contribution, or other opportunities is a competency like any other in engineering and has to be taught and practiced."

How Microsoft FOSS Fund works
-----------------------------

Any Microsoft employee can nominate a project used by Microsoft, but only employees who have contributed to open source in the last six months are eligible to vote on the winners. Around six thousand employees voted in the last round.

To be considered, a project must meet the following requirements:

-   Be used by Microsoft products and/or services.

-   Have an OSI-approved open source license.

-   Have a way to receive funds that our procurement and legal teams approve.

-   Have transparent governance about where and how funds are directed.

-   Not be owned, or primarily maintained by Microsoft employees.

Projects must have public facing details about how sponsorships are distributed, for example in the form of a FUNDING.yml file or in the GitHub Sponsors pane. The goal here is to ensure that the community is not surprised by the direction of funding.

Irwin says GitHub Sponsors is the preferred way to handle donations because it's already established as an accepted vendor, and makes it extremely easy to make payments. "We've heard from people at other companies that they prefer to use GitHub Sponsors when possible too," Irwin says. She emphasizes that while it's a preference, it is not a requirement: The Microsoft FOSS Fund has paid projects through fiscal sponsors like NumFocus, SFI, and other means.

Words of advice
---------------

Irwin says that other organizations looking to create their own funds for open source software should start by setting goals and identifying metrics that teach employees about their dependencies and ways of investing that actually help---be that contribution, sponsorship or beyond. "You need to think about, given your budget, how many different projects  you are able to sponsor and what metrics you should use to find them," Irwin says. "For example if you want to focus on sponsoring single maintainer projects even one sponsorship can make a huge difference and you might be able to do more of those."

Keep adjusting as you go. "Treat the whole process as a continual learning opportunity," she says. "Keep asking what problem or problems you're trying to solve and how the funding will help."

Irwin also emphasizes that investment in open source is a cycle, with no beginning or end - it's important to regularly evaluate the impact of  these efforts on the sustainability of your dependencies over time and to look for emerging needs. "FOSS Fund is a one-time award" she says. "Projects need ongoing contributions to be sustainable."

That means more companies stepping up to keep open source projects thriving, with upstream contributions and, yes, funding.

If you're ready to start sponsoring the open source projects you depend upon, or you're a maintainer looking for sponsorship, [sign-up for GitHub Sponsors today](https://github.com/sponsors).

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How Microsoft’s FOSS fund supports the open source ecosystem

Ensuring those open source projects are healthy, secure, and well supported is a major priority for Stripe. It's not just the right thing to do: Investing in open source improves the company's bottom line. The company supports open source in many ways, from upstream contributions to projects they use to releasing their own open source projects to direct funding.

In 2020, the company scaled up their efforts and formalized their sponsorship program. Today, Stripe funds 11 different projects on a ongoing basis.

In this article we'll:

-   Learn how and why Stripe sponsors open source projects

-   Explore how you can measure the financial benefits of open source in your own organization

Beyond altruism: Why Stripe sponsors open source
------------------------------------------------

Fix credits the program's success on how tied it is to providing business value to Stripe as a company. "Our primary motivation was to invest in the open source software that our users depend on to run their businesses," says Fix. "We want all engineers at Stripe to have access to the best tools to get their jobs done."

The best way to build a sustainable funding program for open source projects, Stripe found, is a symbiotic approach of aligning the company's users' needs with those of maintainers. "Companies need to balance open source investment against everything else on their books, so it's essential to know that sponsorship is delivering value, directly or indirectly, for our users," Fix says.

How Stripe picks projects and distributes funds
-----------------------------------------------

The OSPO team at Stripe gathered usage statistics like API calls and package downloads to determine what open source projects were most important to the company, and consulted their own developers internally about what packages they use and which ones would benefit from investment. Then they talked directly with the maintainers of those packages about how they could best support them. "We really wanted to understand how much investment was required for developers to make conscious changes in their lives to spend more time maintaining their open source projects," Fix says. The Stripe OSPO team makes the final call on which projects to fund in cooperation with their CTO.

The main success criteria Stripe judges its sponsorship decisions against, is how well the projects are being maintained.

Stripe distributes funds via GitHub Sponsors and Open Collective. "These platforms are 'open source native'," Fix says. "It's where developers already are. Plus the platforms have a global reach, which is important since Stripe is sponsoring developers in 11 different countries thus far.

Fix encourages other organizations considering sponsorship programs to treat funding platforms like vendors. Putting them through a standard procurement process makes it easier for everyone across your organization to interact with them.

Measuring the financial benefits of open source in your organization
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Fix recommends that any organizations thinking about spinning up their own OSS sponsorship program first focus on connecting sponsorships to their organization's business goals, and measure the return on investment towards those goals.

In addition to measuring how much user value open source projects enable, Fix recommends a few other things to consider:

-   How much money does open source save your organization? How much time does open source save your developers?

-   Has an open source project, for example an integration or SDK, helped land a sale?

-   Has an open source project unblocked a launch?

One thing to keep in mind, however, is that cost savings can be one-off events, and it's best to look for ongoing benefits created by open source projects in order to create more sustainable funding programs.

"Identifying and tracking these benefits enables you to deploy the greatest amount of sponsorship dollars over the longest period of time," Fix says. "It's what's best both for your organization and the open source community."

Millions of companies around the world use Stripe to move trillions of US dollars. Stripe is a key part of the financial infrastructure of the internet. “Like so much of the internet, open source is a fundamental part of what we do at Stripe," explains engineer and Head of Open Source Mike Fix.

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Why Stripe sponsors open source

So, you believe you've done everything necessary for your GitHub Copilot launch:

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- Prepared to allocate licenses to your team (best of luck to them)... check!

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- What enterprise development teams actually think about generative AI–the pros and the cons.
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