$100 million for open source: A milestone built by the community

A community-funded milestone for open source

GitHub Sponsors launched in 2019 with a straightforward idea: the people who build and maintain open source software should be paid for that work. Seven years later, the program has funneled more than $100 million to maintainers and projects. The milestone belongs to the sponsors — individuals and organizations — who backed that idea, and it marks a shift in how open source is valued.

From individual donations to corporate funding

The program began with individual sponsors, then expanded to include organization-funded sponsorships in 2023. That move brought in companies like Shopify, which used the platform to fund its dependencies at scale. Along the way, GitHub Sponsors grew to 103 regions, added invoice payments and bulk sponsorship tools, and partnered with Patreon to broaden its reach.

The result is a funding network that now supports more than 70,000 maintainers and organizations, with over 280,000 sponsors ranging from independent developers to Fortune 500 companies. Growth has accelerated too: the first $10 million took nearly two years, while the most recent $10 million was raised in just five months.

What the money made possible

For individual maintainers, sponsorship income has changed the economics of open source work.

GitHub Sponsors changed how I think about open source. It gave me a direct, sustainable way to fund the time it takes to build and maintain projects, instead of treating it like side work. That has let me invest more consistently in the projects and build with a much longer-term view. Thanks to GitHub Sponsors, I am able to give back to our community, build a business, and actually make a difference in OSS.

Kelvin Tegelaar, Maintainer, Lime Networks

Some maintainers used the funding to make open source their full-time job, while others redirected a portion of their sponsorships to support the tools their own projects depend on. Corporate sponsors describe the funding as both a practical investment in the software they rely on and a way to strengthen ties to the developer community. Mercedes-Benz, for example, framed its participation as support for the sustainability and longevity of critical open source projects.

My projects wouldn’t be what they are today without GitHub Sponsors. Sponsorships allowed me to quit my job and work on them full time. GitHub Sponsors opened my eyes to the opportunities available for passionate people working on projects that people care about.

Caleb Porzio, Livewire & Alpine.js

The clear message from those on both sides of the funding is that open source careers should hinge on the value of the work, not on geography or circumstance.

Two patterns that moved the needle

Looking back at what drove the growth, two patterns stand out.

Organizations are the main source of large-scale funding. In 2022, nearly 40% of sponsorship funding came from organizations, with each corporate sponsorship worth an average of nearly 15x more than an individual sponsorship. As more companies recognize their dependence on open source, that share is still climbing.

Lowering the barrier to sponsoring works. Each time GitHub reduced friction — through invoice payments, more regions, or bulk sponsorship — funding rose in response. The demand to support open source exists; the challenge has been making it easy to act on.

The gap that remains

The $100 million figure is evidence that community-driven funding can produce real impact, but the larger funding gap for open source persists. Critical projects remain underfunded, and maintainer burnout is still one of the biggest risks to the software supply chain.

For those looking to contribute, the first step is identifying which projects you depend on. Maintainers who have not yet set up a Sponsors profile can do so at github.com/sponsors. Those looking to fund dependencies can explore the marketplace through the Sponsors Explore page.