Need a Deduction? Donate to Open

Year-end is prime time for charitable giving, but not every ‘open’ organization really needs your fifty bucks. Here are a few that do.

Maybe you got some money for Christmas and you’re looking at a worthwhile way to pass it on. Or, with the end of the year coming up you realize that you might as well hand out some money to worthwhile causes rather than letting it get hoovered up by the IRS. Then again, maybe you just got affected by the spirit of the holidays and have come to the realization that it really is better to give than receive.

No matter why you choose to give, you’re going to want to give wisely. For my way of thinking, that means making sure that some of your giving goes to open tech.

Even there, you have to be prudent. There are more than a few open source projects that are non-profit, but which aren’t going to be helped one iota by donations for plebs like you and me. Many of these organizations are already well funded by enterprises that benefit from whatever it is that they do. Most of these big enterprise-focused organizations are also not doing anything that really benefits us everyday tech users, and many of them — even when being legitimately open source — see us as being… well, bothersome.

For example, the Linux Foundation — besides being the folks who keep the Linux kernel maintained — are entirely focused on enterprise use of Linux and open source, to the point of being practically disdainful about desktop Linux. They also don’t need any financial help for maintaining the kernel, at least not in the amounts that any of us who aren’t Warren Buffett can afford.

If you want to donate some money to the Linux ecosphere, I’d recommend that you send a check to your favorite Linux distribution instead. That, or some Linux software that you use whose developers could probably use a few bucks to keep beans on the table.

There are also larger organizations that could use your help. Not all of them are directly involved with software or hardware, but all of them represent causes that are closely intertwined with open, and most depend on individual donations because their work often runs against what big enterprises consider “productive.”

Free Software Foundation

I’m topping the list with the FSF — which is in the middle of its big annual fundraising drive — even though on the day before Christmas it announced that it just became the beneficiary of two contributions totaling around $900,000.

“These incredible acts of generosity are a true gift in a challenging time for many, including many organizations like ours,” said Zoë Kooyman, the FSF’s executive director. “It proves that software freedom is recognized more and more as a principal issue today, at the core of several other social movements people care about like privacy, ownership, and the right to repair.”

The good news is that when these donations arrived, the organization was already about three quarters of the way to meeting its winter fundraising goal of $400,000. With these donations, they can move the priority away from raising money — although the drive continues until January 16 — to concentrate on gaining new members, which was already a part of this effort.

“We are proudly supported by a large variety of contributors who care about digital rights. All donations matter, whether $5 or $500,000,” Kooyman added. “Naturally, a large donation of this size boosts our work tremendously, but year after year we rely on a considerable number of donations, which maintains our independence. It makes it all the more special that these donors did not ask to be recognized.”

All of the ways you can donate to the FSF are listed on the organization’s website.

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users’ right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free software — particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants — and free documentation for free software.

Electronic Frontier Foundation:

If you’re looking for an organization that stands up for your digital rights — which includes not only your right to compute as you wish, but to do so without running afoul of laws meant to limit your freedoms or step on your privacy rights — look no further than the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

A couple of years back, EFF published an article — How We Fundraise — that had this to say:

“Part of our team’s mandate is to not only raise money to support EFF’s work defending your rights in a digital world, but to bring as many people to our community as possible. Our members don’t only provide the financial support that fuels our organization. When we submit amicus briefs or testify in front of Congress, and say that we speak with 30,000 voices, the courts and legislators listen more closely.”

EFF says that instead of chasing big donations for high rollers, it prefers to collect smaller amounts from many. For example, in 2022 about 60% of the organization’s revenue came from individual donors, and a quarter of its revenue came from individuals giving less than $1,000.

The organization also puts its money where its mouth is by looking after its own. About 90% of the organization’s expenses are salaries and benefits, “because we invest in the people doing the work.” Also, the nonprofit watchdog Charity Navigator consistently gives EFF the highest possible rating of four stars for accountability and transparency.

The EFF has a special page on its website for accepting donations.

e Foundation

The e Foundation is the organization behind /e/OS, the privacy respecting and degoogled Android clone. If you’re a privacy respecting Linux user, even if you’re not using a privacy respecting mobile OS — admittedly, it’s kind of a hassle — you might want to make a donation here if you can afford it.

“With your help and through your donations, we can support a growing team of passionate contributors, keep /e/OS completely independent and make it sustainable over time. Every donation helps the project to pursue additional developments, rent servers for compilation and to host your e.email/murena.io account or the community forum, pay for domain names and other key expenses. Donations also let us communicate about personal data protection and help people adopt better privacy habits and technologies.”

You can make a one-off donation, if you wish, or you can become an /e/OS Patron to contribute monthly. You can find a way that works for you on the foundation’s donation page.

Other Ways to Donate

There are other free and open organizations that could use your help as well. For example, there’s the Software Freedom Conservancy, which has been in the news lately because of its court case against Visio, to get the smart TV maker to play by the rules and release source code of the GPL and LGPL software it uses. Also, your local community likely has a Linux users’ group that could use some funds — even if they’re not asking for anything.

No matter where you decide to give, give carefully: fifty bucks to people fighting for your freedom to compute is going to matter a hell of a lot more than fifty bucks disappearing into some faceless general fund.