Ecosystems, Not Projects: Rethinking Open Source Foundation Funding

<p>Open source foundations face growing demands, more projects, more users, more scrutiny, while still relying on fragile funding models built around grants, sponsorships, and donations. This talk argues that the problem is not funding open source projects, but funding them in isolation.</p> <p>Drawing on experiences from the Apereo and the eBPF Foundations, this session explores a shift from project-centric funding to ecosystem-level investment. Using eBPF as a case study, it shows how funding efforts like security audits, upstream kernel work, directed development, face-to-face collaboration, and ecosystem marketing can strengthen many projects at once and deliver far greater impact per dollar.</p> <p>The talk also introduces Apereo's self-sustainability model, in which foundations, even projects, support themselves through services rooted in community expertise, such as training, events, audits, and operational support, rather than perpetual fundraising. The goal is not to create more foundations, but ones more focused on ecosystems that are resilient by design, and able to support open source as shared infrastructure rather than a collection of individual projects.</p>