Tor’s Raising Funds — Get Swag, Attend Events, and a Benefactor Will Match Every Donation

Dollar for dollar matching funds, cool swag, and you get to sleep better at night knowing that the folks at Tor are able to continue working hard to protect your privacy. What’s not to like about that?

It’s fund raising time at the Tor Project, which is the outfit behind The Onion Router that lets you go anywhere on the web you want, even to some pretty creepy sites on the so-called “dark web,” without having to worry much about getting caught by bad crime dudes or by bad law enforcement agencies.

Fund raising season for Tor goes on until the end of the year.

“We do this because the Tor Project is a nonprofit organization, powered by donations from our community,” Al Smith, the director of fundraising at Tor said today in a blog on the project’s website. “Donations make it possible for the Tor Project to build tools powered by people — not profit.”

Donations are, of course, accepted at any time by the folks at Tor, but the next couple of months are particularly good for people who want to write a check, pay by PayPal, or even send some cryptocurrency and get most bang for their donation bucks. That’s because a privacy advocacy group that funds privacy-related research and development is stepping up the the plate with matching funds of up to $300,000.

“Now is a great time to give and spread the word about the Tor Project, because through the end of the year all donations will be matched by our supporters at Power Up Privacy,” Smith said. “That means when you donate $25, you’re making a $50 impact. Plus, we’ve introduced a brand-new item to our list of gifts you can receive in return for making a donation.”

Gifts? For donating? Yup, because if there’s anything people like more than getting swag, it’s handing out swag. Make a donation through Tor’s website and you get to choose between a sticker pack, a t-shirt, a hat, or a t-shirt + hat pack — all Tor-themed with the onion logo. Donate $250 and you can get a high quality Tor hoodie instead — because nothing says going incognito on the internet more than hiding in the shadow of an upturned hoodie.

“We are a small nonprofit. It can take a few weeks to receive your gift—and more if you are outside of the U.S,” the project says on its website. “After six weeks, please email us at giving@torproject.org if you would like to check on the status of your gift.”

You can even get one of these swell gifts if you pay by bitcoin or one of the other cryptocurrencies. Check out the donations FAQs page on how to handle that.

Tor Events

Nothing helps with raising funds more than cool online events to show the folks at home how hard you work, and the Tor Project folks have four of those on the schedule. They’re all free and will be able to be streamed live from the project’s YouTube channel.

• Global Encryption Day: Distribute(d) trust – The key to global encryption access (Monday, October 21)

  For many vulnerable internet users, the Tor network is the only way to gain access to encrypted services. This is made possible by relay operators, the thousands of volunteers who donate their time, technical expertise, and hardware for the good of the project. On Global Encryption Day, Tor will host a roundtable discussion with individual and institutional relay operators to learn more about the ins and outs of powering a safer, more equitable internet. The virtual live event is part of Tor’s contributions to Global Encryption Day.

• State of the Onion – the Tor Project (Wednesday, November 13)

  The State of the Onion is the Tor Project’s annual virtual event in which the project shares updates from the Tor Project and the Tor community. The “project” event on November 13 will focus on the Tor Project and the organization’s work.

• State of the Onion – Community (Wednesday, November 20)

  The second State of the Onion event, the “community” event on November 20, will focus on organizations within the Tor community and their work.

• Human Rights Day (Tuesday, December 10)

  Every year on December 10, the Tor Project celebrates the United Nation’s adoption and proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The UDHR outlines privacy as one of the human rights everyone should be free to exercise.

Ways to contribute

When it comes to fundraising, the folks at the Tor Project are serious. They not only have no qualms about asking for donations to help them continue to do the valuable work they do, they even come up with some suggestions on how you can help them in their efforts:

1. Make a donation: Donate through our website (or any other method listed on our FAQ) and your donation will be matched, 1:1, up to $300,000.
2. Ask the company you work for if they will match your donation: Many corporations will match their employees’ donations to charitable organizations. Ask at work if your company will match your gift.
3. Share on social media: Let the people in your networks know that all donations to the Tor Project are currently being matched. You can easily share a post from our social channels: Mastodon, Bluesky, X, and more.
4. Subscribe to Tor News: No ads. No tracking. Just low-traffic Tor updates via email.

Tor’s list of ways to contribute inspired me. When I got to the third item I said to myself, “I can do one better than that. I can write an article about Tor’s fundraiser, publish it on FOSS Force — because what we do best is cover the “free tech” community — then post the article to Mastodon, Bluesky, X, and more.”

Now it’s up to you to make a donation (don’t forget to pick out a cool swag item) and share this article on Facebook, Mastodon, Bluesky, X, LinkedIn or wherever you found it, so that other’s can also contribute.