Software Freedom Conservancy

Software Freedom Conservancy

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Software Freedom Conservancy acts as a nonprofit home for free and open source projects that want fiscal sponsorship, legal support, bookkeeping, fundraising infrastructure, and administrative help without creating their own standalone organization. For many established OSS projects, its value is less about a single donation button and more about long-term operational support around money, compliance, contracts, and project governance.

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Goal: Project support. Model: Infrastructure. Status: Live.

Should you use this?

Best for
Projects whose main blocker is hosting, CI, storage, AI tooling, or operational overhead.
Not ideal for
Projects that need direct maintainer income rather than cost reduction.
Why choose it
Nonprofit fiscal sponsorship, legal help, and donation handling for FOSS projects. Best for teams that want structure without forming a new entity.
Watch out for
Credits and tooling reduce burden but usually do not fund maintainer time directly.
Setup effort
Medium
Fees
Conservancy's fiscal sponsorship agreement says it keeps 10% of most member-project revenue and donations for general operations, with higher fees occasionally negotiated for event-focused projects.
Last verified
2026-03-15
Goal Project support
Model Infrastructure
Tags
Non-profit Legal OSS-specific
Official websiteVisit official website
VerificationUnverified
X@conservancy
OrganizationNon-profit
Open source statusOpen source mission-driven organization
Platform technologyNonprofit fiscal-sponsorship and legal-support organization
Monetization modelFiscal sponsorship, donations, and nonprofit project services
Payment methodsPayPal Giving Fund, checks, wire transfers, stock donations, eBay charity sales, and directed project donations
Platform feesConservancy's fiscal sponsorship agreement says it keeps 10% of most member-project revenue and donations for general operations, with higher fees occasionally negotiated for event-focused projects.
User activityConservancy currently describes itself as home to nearly fifty member projects and publishes active project-services and donation programs.

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