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+---
+title: 'How we started to donate to Open Source at work'
+taxonomy:
+    tag:
+        - work
+        - freesoftware
+        - donations
+content:
+    items:
+        - '@self.children'
+    limit: 5
+    order:
+        by: date
+        dir: desc
+    pagination: true
+    url_taxonomy_filters: true
+---
+
+## Pitching the idea
+
+As you might have seen in the news, there have been a lot of articles over the
+years that Open Source software doesn't receive enough support, especially
+financially.
+
+At my employer [Contria GmbH](https://www.contria.ch) we use a lot of Open Source software:
+
+- Ubuntu as the base OS for our VMs
+- Ansible to deploy the VMs
+- Nginx, PHP and MariaDB to run the applications
+- Vagrant and Virtualbox to set up a development environment
+
+To just name a few and as well some tools provided by individuals for free. For
+example digwebinterface.com.
+
+I would consider myself a Free Software enthusiast and read a lot of those
+articles mentioned above. So a few years ago I decided, I would try and ask if
+Contria would be willing to donate to the various Open Source projects we use
+to build and run our products.
+
+When I spoke with the manager of the company about it, I wasn't actually met
+with a lot of resistance. I mentioned the problems a lot of Open Source
+projects had with funding and asked if we as Contria might be wiling to do
+something in this regard. He quickly saw the reasoning behind the idea and was
+willing to continue with the project.
+
+> Just like that?
+
+_Yes just like that. I hope that it will be this easy for everyone who tries to
+do something similar._
+
+## Getting started
+
+After the initial pitch it took a few years before we actually started with the
+project. But in 2021 I was able to officially dedicate some of my time to the
+project.
+
+I started to create a short list with software and projects we used and seemed
+worth to donate to. I focused mainly on non-profit organisations and
+individuals. For example, while we use Ubuntu it makes more sense to me to
+donate to Debian. Ubuntu is based on Debian and Canonical, the company behind
+Ubuntu, is already profitable.
+
+In addition to the larger and more system related projects, I would like to
+start curating a list of essential packages we use in our products. We're not
+quite there yet, but I expect this to be something to grow each year anyway.
+
+After I created the list I assigned a percentage to each project. Currently,
+these are just 5 and 10%. Roughly weighed by importance to us and a bit by the
+size of the project. I did it this way so that the distribution wasn't based on
+the budget because when I created the list I didn't know yet how much money I
+was able to spend. It then turned out that the budget would be a **few
+thousand** Swiss Francs, I could freely allocate.
+
+> That doesn't sound like much for a swiss company with over 20 employees.
+
+_Compared to the licenses we pay for proprietary software it's indeed not that
+much. But then again, it's still quite a substancial amount. Who knows maybe it
+will grow in the future._
+
+Last year we had about 40% left which I didn't allocate to a specific project.
+We didn't just want to keep the money and were sure that there were very
+important but "hidden" projects we didn't think of. Think OpenSSL for example
+which was one of the most prominent examples in recent years.\\
+We first thought about giving the money to the FSFE or a similar foundation. A
+lot of them do a very good job, but we felt that some of them might be a bit too
+political for a company to donate to.
+We then found the [Open Source Collective](https://www.oscollective.org/) which was exactly what we were
+looking for. Projects can apply for funding at the Open Source Collective, and
+they would then distribute the donations between the projects. So any leftover
+budget we have goes fully to the Open Source Collective now.
+
+## Problems when donating
+
+For most projects it was very easy to donate to. Especially when they are on
+[opencollective.com](https://opencollective.com). Donating through PayPal works as well but we prefer
+Open Collective.
+
+Some projects have regular bank accounts which you can donate to, for some this
+worked well but was more involved for us because I would have to go through the
+financial department. In the case of the Drupal foundation we weren't able to
+donate at all because something was wrong with the address of their bank.
+Luckily they are now on Open Collective.
+
+One project we quite like and use a lot didn't collect its donation, and it
+looks like the project might have become unmaintained. I'm not sure yet of we
+donate to it again this year. I really appreciate the work but if the money
+doesn't get used we probably give it better to a project that does use it.
+
+## Final thoughts
+
+I'm very happy with the outcome of our donating project. I feel that the
+amount we donate is sustainable, and it shows that we as a company care about
+these projects.\\
+Since it's my employer I'm writing here about I can't make any predictions, but
+I will keep advocating for the use and support of Open Source and especially
+Free Software inside our company.
+
+For other people that think their employer might be able to contribute to Open
+Source projects, I can give the following advice:\\
+The main reason why we didn't do it before, was that we didn't have someone who
+carried the idea forward. So go ahead and give it a try :).