Announcing GitHub Sponsors: a new way to contribute to open source

We’re thrilled to announce the beta of GitHub Sponsors, a new way to financially support the developers who build the open source software you use every day. Open source developers build tools for the rest of us. GitHub Sponsors is a new tool to help them succeed, too.

To jump start this new program and boost community funding, we’re also launching the GitHub Sponsors Matching Fund. GitHub will match all contributions up to $5,000 during a developer’s first year in GitHub Sponsors.

Start sponsoring

The world runs on open source. None of it would be possible without the global team of maintainers, designers, programmers, researchers, teachers, writers, leaders—and more—who devote themselves to pushing technology forward. These extraordinary developers can now receive funding from the community that depends on their work, seamlessly through their GitHub profiles.

Zero fees

Open source is the heart of GitHub. The developers who build our shared digital infrastructure are what make this community so strong. As a thank you for these valuable contributions, GitHub Sponsors charges zero platform fees when you support the work of other developers. We’ll also cover payment processing fees for the first 12 months of the program to celebrate the launch. 100% percent of your sponsorship goes to the developer.

A global team

GitHub Sponsors supports payouts all around the world, in every country where GitHub does business. We are all part of a global software team. Expanding opportunities to participate on that team is at the core of our mission, so we’re proud to make this new tool available to developers worldwide.

All contributors welcome

Many contributions that are crucial to a well-functioning project are not visible in code review. GitHub Sponsors is built for funding all types of work that advance open source software. Anyone who contributes to open source—whether through code, documentation, leadership, mentorship, design, and beyond—is eligible for sponsorship.

One more way to contribute

GitHub Sponsors is one more way to contribute to open source: financially supporting the people who build and maintain it. Funding individuals helps them keep doing important work, expands opportunities to participate, and gives developers the recognition they deserve. Starting today, any GitHub user can sponsor an open source developer in the program.

Native to your GitHub workflow

You can now sponsor developers as a seamless part of your familiar workflow. When a contributor answers your question, triages your issue, or merges your code, you can head to their profile—or simply hover over their username—to sponsor their work. From the new Community Contributors hover card, you can take a peek at the people who built your transitive dependencies. And with just a few clicks, you can fund the developers behind the open source software you use every day.

Open source projects can also express their funding models directly from their repositories. When .github/FUNDING.yml is added to a project’s master branch, a new “Sponsor” button will appear at the top of the repository. Clicking the button opens a natively rendered view of the funding models listed in that file.

The YAML format is flexible, so a project’s maintainers and contributors can decide how they want to fund the project on their own terms. They can showcase any (or all!) of the following: the GitHub Sponsors profiles of the developers who contribute to the project; a list of popular funding models including Open Collective, Community Bridge, Tidelift, Ko-fi, and Patreon; and custom links to alternative funding models.

A first step

GitHub Sponsors is launching small and simple, but our mission is vast: to expand the opportunities to participate in and build on open source. We’re here to serve the developer community, and we’re eagerly listening for your input about what else you’d like to see in GitHub Sponsors.

We’ve also convened an advisory panel to explore the operational challenges faced by open source teams. The panel is comprised of leaders from a range of open source projects, and we’re excited to explore ways to serve them, too. After all, open source is a team sport. If your team is interested in participating in this advisory group, or if you have ideas about how GitHub Sponsors can serve the open source community, send an email to opensource@github.com.

Do you want to get sponsored for your work as an open source contributor or maintainer? Join the waitlist as our beta grows.

Join the waitlist

Written by

Devon Zuegel

@devonzuegel