GNOME Foundation

  • 2024-2025 budget and economic review

    Dear community members,

    As promised in the previous communication the Board would like to share some more details on our current financial situation and the budget for our 2024-2025 financial year, which runs from 1st October 2024 to 30th September 2025.

    Background

    • The Foundation needs an approved budget in place because our spending policies use the budget to authorise what staff and committees are allowed to spend money on. This year we passed the budget on time for the start of the financial year, which was thanks to a lot of detailed and particularly challenging work by Richard, which the board is grateful for.
    • We consider the budget in 2 distinct parts:
      • Budget for our fiscally-sponsored projects. We consider their income, but not their expenses. The reason for that is that the Foundation takes a small part of the income as the fiscal sponsorship fee, supporting our administrative and operating costs. Funds received on behalf of other projects are tracked separately, called “reserved funds”, and the Foundation cannot spend money that belongs to the other projects.
      • General operating budget for the GNOME Foundation, which is what this post is all about! At any later point, when talking about the budget, we’re talking about the general/unrestricted operating funds and it is safe to assume that income for fiscally-sponsored projects is not included.
    • The budget for the previous 2023-2024 fiscal year was presented to the board as a roughly balanced break-even budget, anticipating $1.201M of revenue and $1.195M of expenses. The board considered two fundraising scenarios proposed by our previous ED, with the most ambitious scenario planning to raise an additional $2M for the Foundation, and one more conservative which anticipated an additional $475k of revenue from various sources (donations, grants, event sponsorship). This more conservative scenario was included in the budget, but in practice things did not work out as planned. This additional funding was not raised, meaning that in practice the Foundation once again ran at a deficit over the past year and used funds from our reserves.
    • The new 2024-2025 budget considers a total income of $586k, and total expense of $550k. Two things are clearly different from last year: the expenses have been greatly reduced, and we have aimed for a surplus instead of the deficit we ended up with last year. Both things were a consequence of the budget from previous year not being executed as expected. Since our reserve policy requires us to retain enough money to sustain core operations without income for another year (specifically, 1.1 times core spending), we’ve had to reduce expenses to save money and restore our reserves.

    So, let’s dig into the details:

    Income

    • $205,100 in donations. This number is based on previous years income, of individual contributions ($75,000), Advisory Board fees ($105,800), and other small contributions ($7,800) like matching donations (where companies double what employees donate). It also includes $16,500 currently pending from Wau Holland Stiftung, an organization we had a historic agreement with to collect funds from European donors that is tax deductible. We believe that there is a great potential for the GNOME Foundation to increase the amount of individual contributions received, and this has been included in the Strategic Plan and many board discussions. Unfortunately, without a permanent Executive Director, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to establish a program to do so in the short-term, so we have decided to budget conservatively to ensure economic sustainability.
    • $64,500 from event sponsorship. Most of that money comes from GUADEC ($61,000), with some from LAS and GNOME Asia, which is one of the main reasons why we are able to maintain our events: because they are sponsored separately, they are mostly self-sustaining.
    • $65,500 in fiscal sponsorship fees. This is based on a % fee the GNOME Foundation takes for our operational costs from hosting GIMP and Black Python Devs. This number is uncommonly high due as we have been workng with the GIMP on financial and legal arrangements to receive approx $1M of historical Bitcoin donations. (And sell them immediately – holding Bitcoin assets creates a regulatory/reporting problem for US nonprofits and our accountants have advised us against it.)
    • $1,000 in interest from money in the bank account. This is budgeted higher than previous years, as work is already in progress to change bank accounts to increase this income, as recommended by our auditors.
    • $500 profit from selling T-shirts and other goods ($2,500 income, $2,000 in expenses).
    • $250,000 from the 2nd year of an Endless grant that was approved last year. This grant provides $50,000 for general funds that the Foundation can use at its discretion, and $200,000 that need to be spent on specific tasks. Currently, those are assigned to Flathub, Parental Controls, GNOME Software maintenance, and internships. Some of those will be detailed in the expense section.

    Expenditures

    • $10,000 interim ED salary. This is to be able to pay Richard to continue managing the Foundation and staff team until 10th December.
    • $100,000 for development contractors for work associated with the Endless grant. This work includes improvements in Parental Controls and GNOME Software, and is being executed by Philip Withnall (development), Sam Hewitt (design) and potentially one more developer over the coming year. Philip gave an update on the work in his presentation at GUADEC.
    • $110,600 in contractor costs for program staff, including events and infrastructure. This covers Kristi’s work which is the backbone of events such as GUADEC, LAS and GNOME.Asia, and Bart’s work running GNOME and Flathub infrastructure. The Flathub portion of this work is funded by the Endless grant.
    • $32,000 in Outreachy interships. This is a long-term partnership with Conservancy and commitment by the GNOME Foundation as the original birthplace of the Outreachy initiative. They are supported this year by reallocating some of the Endless grant, with their permission. This will pay for a total 4 interns between the winter and summer cohort.
    • $20,000 in contractor support. This is allocated for part-time contracting of Thibault Martin and Dawid Jankowiak to support the STF team and work on a crowdfunding platform for our development fundraising. Some of this is funded by the Endless grant and will be spent on coordinating the next steps of the Flathub payments/donations launch.
    • $158,000 in employment/contractor costs for operations and admin staff, supporting the GNOME Foundation across finances, events and community initiatives.
    • $47,500 in professional services, ie legal and accounting. These include a reserve for legal fees ($10,000), an external accounts audit for the previous financial year ($17,500), which is required due to our income (mostly due to STF) being over the $2M threshold, and accounting fees ($20,000). Some of the financial and legal costs are driven by work setting up Flathub LLC and are covered by the Endless grant.
    • $3,200 in office expenses, mostly related to postal expenses required for sending material between contractors, staff, and event organisers.
    • $54,000 in conferences and travel. These include the budget for the conferences themselves ($30,000), which includes GUADEC, GNOME Asia, and hackathons around the globe, but also travel for staff ($12,000) and community ($12,000). Travel particularly has been significantly reduced from previous year, but should still allow for staff/organisers to attend our events, and for the travel committee to support some community travel to GUADEC and GNOME Asia.
    • $15,000 in other fees. These include banking costs for sending money from the US to Europe, PayPal fees, and insurance. They might seem high, but are in total less than 1.5% of the cash flow of the Foundation, which is within the expected value for any organization.

    Balance

    • As of the preparation of this budget, we have approx $140,000 in GNOME Foundation reserves. There’s a lot more money in the bank, but they are reserved funds held for GIMP and BPD.
    • We need to ensure that we meet our reserve policy of retaining 1.1 times core spending. Unfortunately, core spending is fairly loosely defined. This year, we have considered: Events and minimal staff travel, part-time infrastructure support, minimal staff, and some fees and professional services. In total, we accounted that we would need at least $158,000 at the end of the year to be able meet the policy.
    • The approved budget should put our reserves around $176,000 at the year end, which is slightly above our reserve policy. Considering we used a very limited interpretation of the reserves policy, it’s better to include a small safety margin for any unanticipated costs.

    Conclusion

    With limited time from our interim Executive Director (ED), Richard Littauer, who is working part-time, the board is prioritising: recruiting our new ED, delivering our current project/grant commitments (to STF and to Endless), and fundraising for development work. This includes working with the community to launch our development fund crowdfunder/platform and plan a follow-up project for STF grant, so that the GNOME Foundation can support and grow its direct investment in project development.

    Keen readers will note that there is nothing in the current budget for the ED’s salary. We are in discussions with a potential donor to see whether we can find support for the salary for the ED for the first year. In any case, transparently sharing our financial situation and fundraising needs is an essential part of any ED recruitment process, so we could still recruit somebody with “raise money for your own salary” being their first priority.

    Hopefully this additional detail helps to show the challenges of our current situation, and why we had to make really tough decisions, like parting ways with some greatly appreciated members of our staff team. We hope this sheds some more light on why those decisions were taken, provides confidence on the work done by the board and the ED, and where we currently stand. We are also very relieved to be able to provide a surplus budget for the first time in many years, and doing so while still being able to support the community: events, infrastructure, internships, travel funding, and meeting our commitment to donors for work done in some parts of the stack, e.g.: Flathub, parental controls and GNOME Software.

    We welcome any feedback and questions from the GNOME community. Thanks to all of our GNOME members, contributors, donors, sponsors and advisory board members!

    The GNOME Foundation Board of Directors

  • Update from the Board: 2024-10

    Dear GNOME community members,

    We want to provide you with an important update on recent developments at the GNOME Foundation.

    What Has Happened

    The GNOME Foundation Board of Directors has approved a budget for the coming financial year (October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2025). In the process, we’ve had to make some tough decisions to ensure the Foundation’s long-term financial sustainability.

    What Is Impacted

    Staff Changes

    Regrettably, we have had to reduce our staff. Caroline Henriksen (Creative Director) and Melissa Wu (Director of Community Development) are no longer members of the GNOME Foundation staff team. We sincerely thank Caroline and Melissa for their significant contributions over the past years and wish them the best in their future endeavors.

    Operational Adjustments

    Critical tasks will be redistributed among remaining staff and the Board. We will be reaching out to the community for more support in areas such as:

    • Event organization and representation
    • Marketing initiatives
    • Fundraising efforts
    • Graphic design

    Reduced Travel

    Unless additional funds are secured, there will be significant reductions on community, board and staff travel to events. We’ll be reassessing which events are most critical for staff attendance.

    What Is Unaffected

    Key Events: LAS, GNOME.Asia, GUADEC

    We are hosting the Linux App Summit in partnership with KDE this weekend, on 4th-5th October in Monterrey, Mexico. Other events such as GNOME.Asia and GUADEC are continuing as planned and remain a core priority for our team. We’re very grateful to our event sponsors for separately supporting these important events to bring our community together.

    Internships

    We have secured funding to continue our participation in Outreachy at our previous level of four interns a year, two later this year and two early next year. Our participation in Google Summer of Code is supported by our greatly-appreciated Internship Committee and is also not impacted by these changes.

    Externally Sponsored Projects

    Certain other projects, including all of the infrastructure, staff, legal and operating costs of Flathub, and ongoing development work on Digital Wellbeing / Parental Controls, are fully sponsored by an existing grant from Endless. We are also working with our team of contractors to complete the delivery of the remaining elements of the Sovereign Tech Fund contract. We are not able to divert these funds to different purposes, but equally, they are fully funded to continue even though we’ve had to reduce spending in other areas.

    Infrastructure & Operations

    All of the gnome.org infrastructure remains fully funded and staffed as before, together with our core finance, operations and administrative functions.

    Why This Has Happened

    Our plan for the previous financial year was to operate a break-even budget. We raised less than expected last year, due to a very challenging fundraising environment for nonprofits, on top of internal changes such as the departure of our previous Executive Director, Holly Million.

    The Foundation has a reserves policy which requires us to keep a certain amount of money in the bank account, to preserve core operations in the event of interruptions to our income.

    In order to meet our reserves policy, this year’s budget had to reduce our expenditure to below expected income, and generate a small surplus to reinstate the Foundation’s financial reserves to the necessary level.

    What’s Next

    • Executive Director Recruitment: We are actively searching for a new Executive Director. This process is unaffected by the current budget constraints as we are exploring different ways to fund the role.
    • Community Support: We’re asking for your support in several ways:
      • Look out for opportunities to volunteer your time and skills in areas where we’ve had to reduce staff involvement.
      • Share ideas on how to organize and improve our activities in this new context.
      • Consider making donations to support the GNOME Foundation’s core priorities, if you’re able.
    • Transparency: In the coming weeks, we’ll share a more detailed report of the current finances and the approved budget, including specific categories and the reasoning behind various decisions.
    • Ongoing Communication: We’re committed to providing regular updates on our progress and welcome your feedback on how often you’d like to hear from us.

    Through these difficult decisions, the GNOME Foundation is able to meet its reserves policy, ensuring sufficient funds for the coming year. Our budget for the new financial year is realistic and supports four full time staff, who are able to support key operations like finance, infrastructure and events. We are additionally contracting a number of other individuals on a short term or part time basis, to help with fund raising, websites and delivering on our project commitments.

    We are going to be looking to the GNOME community to help with the areas that are most affected by our reduced staffing. If you would like to help GNOME with its events, marketing, or fundraising, we would love to hear from you. We would also welcome the community’s input on the best way to organize these activities, so please feel free to reach out to our Interim Executive Director, Richard Littauer (richard@gnome.org), or the Board if you have ideas.

    Thank you all for your continued commitment to the GNOME community, and thanks to all of the existing donors, sponsors and advisory board members whose support year on year is essential to maintain the Foundation’s core operations.

    The GNOME Foundation Board of Directors

    This document was previously posted on the Discourse, and is mirrored here without changes (except adding Richard’s email, above). https://discourse.gnome.org/t/update-from-the-board-2024-10/24346

  • Introducing GNOME 47

    The GNOME Project is proud to announce the release of GNOME 47, ‘Denver’.

    This release brings support for customizable Accent Colors, improved support for small screens, persistent remote sessions, and new-style dialog windows. Like many other core apps, Files has received improvements and now also used for file open and save dialogs. Once again, a whole slew of new apps have joined the GNOME Circle initiative: find GNOME apps for anything from currency conversion to resource monitoring.

    To learn more about the changes in GNOME 47 you can read the release notes:

    GNOME release notes

    You can also watch our release video.

    GNOME release video 1

    GNOME 47 will be available shortly in many distributions, such as Fedora 41 and Ubuntu 24.10. If you want to try it today, you can look for their beta releases, which will be available very soon:

    Getting GNOME

    We are also providing our own installer images for debugging and testing features. These images are meant for installation in a vm and require GNOME Boxes with UEFI support. We suggest getting Boxes from Flathub.

    GNOME OS Nightly

    If you are interested in building applications for GNOME 47, look for the GNOME 47 Flatpak SDK, which is available in the http://www.flathub.org/ repository.

    This six-month effort wouldn’t have been possible without the whole GNOME community, made of contributors and friends from all around the world: developers, designers, documentation writers, usability and accessibility specialists, translators, maintainers, students, system administrators, companies, artists, testers, the local GUADEC team in Denver,
    and last, but not least, our users.

    GNOME would not exist without all of you. Thank you to everyone!

    We hope to see some of you at GNOME Asia 2024 in Bengaluru, India!

    Our next release, GNOME 48, is planned for March 2025. Until then, enjoy GNOME 47.

    :heart: The GNOME release team

    [See the original Discourse Post]

  • GNOME Foundation Opens Search for New Executive Director

    The GNOME Foundation is excited to announce that we have officially opened the search for a new Executive Director. This is an exciting time for our organization as we seek a dynamic leader to guide us into the future, continuing our mission to foster the growth of GNOME and the wider free software community.

    As the cornerstone of our leadership team, the Executive Director will play a critical role in shaping the strategic direction of the Foundation, working closely with staff, community members, and partners to expand our reach and impact. The ideal candidate will have professional experience working with nonprofits, a strong passion for open-source software, a deep commitment to our community values, and the vision to drive the next phase of GNOME’s growth and development.

    The position offers a unique opportunity to lead a pivotal project in the open-source ecosystem, collaborating with a global network of contributors and partners. Interested candidates can find more details on the role and how to apply on our careers page.

    We encourage qualified individuals who share our vision of promoting software freedom and innovation to apply. We are looking forward to finding the next Executive Director who will carry forward the mission of the GNOME Foundation, driving positive change within the tech world and beyond.

    Applications are due by October 15th, 2024.

    Learn More and Apply

  • GNOME Asia 2024 in Bengaluru, India

    We are excited to announce that GNOME Asia 2024 will take place in Bengaluru, India, from December 6th-8th.

    This year the summit will offer a hybrid experience allowing attendees to participate virtually or in person.

    The Call for Participation is now open. We are accepting both in-person and remote talks and workshops. If you are interested in submitting a proposal make sure to apply on our event website by September 30th.

    Submit a Talk

    If you or your company are interested in sponsoring GNOME Asia 2024, please review our sponsorship brochure and get in touch with us at asia@gnome.org.

    About Bengaluru

    Bengaluru, often called the “Silicon Valley of India,” is a dynamic city known for its thriving tech scene and vibrant open-source community. As a key hub for technology and innovation, Bengaluru is home to many Linux and GNOME contributors who play a vital role in the global open-source movement. The city has also become a focal point for startups and IT giants, contributing significantly to technological advancements and digital solutions.

    Beyond its technological achievements, Bengaluru boasts a rich cultural heritage. Visitors can explore iconic landmarks such as the Bangalore Palace, Tipu Sultan’s Summer Palace, and the historic Bull Temple. The city’s spiritual side shines through at the ISKCON Temple, while the grandeur of Vidhana Soudha stands as a testament to its political significance. For those seeking tranquility, serene green spaces like Lalbagh Botanical Garden, Cubbon Park, and Ulsoor Lake offer a respite from the urban buzz.

    Bengaluru enjoys a pleasant climate year-round, with moderate temperatures and a mix of sunny and rainy days, adding to its appeal as a city of innovation and tradition. This unique blend of a progressive tech hub and cultural richness makes Bengaluru a standout destination both for its technological prowess and its historical charm.

    Image credit: “South Bengaluru Skyline as seen from ISKCON, Banashankari” by Raghavan2010 is licensed under CC BY 4.0

    About GNOME.Asia

    GNOME.Asia is a featured annual conference focused on the GNOME project and the GNOME desktop environment. The summit aims at bringing the GNOME community in Asia together to provide a forum for users, developers, foundation leaders, governments, and businesses to discuss current technology and future developments. 

    About GNOME

    GNOME is a free and open-source software environment project supported by a non-profit foundation. Together, the community of contributors and the Foundation create a computing platform and software ecosystem, composed entirely of free software, that is designed to be elegant, efficient, and easy to use.

  • GNOME Foundation Announces Transition of Executive Director

    Today, the GNOME Foundation announces that Holly Million will be departing from her role as Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation. An Interim Executive Director, Richard Littauer, has joined the Foundation this week. This arrangement ensures a smooth transition and continuity as we prepare for a new Executive Director search. Holly’s last day will be July 31, and she and Richard will be able to coordinate their efforts during this period. 

    “I’m very proud of what I have accomplished in my time with GNOME,” Holly said, “and I am dedicated to working with Richard through a transition to ensure that everything I have been working on is handed off smoothly. I will be pursuing a PhD in Psychology and dedicating myself to my own private practice. I want to thank all the wonderful people I have had the pleasure of connecting with here at GNOME, including the staff, board, advisors, founders, and volunteers. You have created something of real value in the world, and I look forward to seeing what you do next.”

    On behalf of the whole GNOME community, the Board of Directors would like to give our utmost thanks to Holly for her achievements during the past 10 months, including drafting a bold five-year strategic plan for the Foundation, securing two important fiscal sponsorship agreements with GIMP and Black Python Devs, writing our first funding proposal that will now enable the Foundation to apply for more grants, vastly improving our financial operations, and implementing a break-even budget to preserve our financial reserves. 

    The Foundation’s Interim Executive Director, Richard Littauer, brings years of open source leadership as part of his work as an organizer of SustainOSS and CURIOSS, as a sustainability coordinator at the Open Source Initiative, and as a community development manager at Open Source Collective, and through open source contributions to many projects, such as Node.js and IPFS. The Board appointed Richard in June and is confident in his ability to guide the Foundation during this transitional period.

    The Board will be meeting next week to set up a search plan for a permanent Executive Director, which will be announced after GUADEC. The Foundation looks forward to talking with GNOME members and the community and answering any questions next week at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) GUADEC in Denver, as well as asynchronously with those in Berlin and around the globe.

  • GUADEC 2024 Call for BoFs and Workshops

    We have opened an additional call for submissions for Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) sessions and Workshops for GUADEC 2024!

    BoF and Workshop sessions will be scheduled in one or two-hour blocks on Monday, July 22, and Tuesday, July 23. If you’re interested in hosting a session on either of these days, please fill out this form to apply. If you previously submitted a proposal during the call for proposals, your request has already been included in the conference schedule. The deadline for new submissions is 15th June.

    GUADEC 2024 will take place at Tivoli Student Union in the Auraria Campus. For more information, visit guadec.org.

    Please note that BoFs and Workshops will not be live-streamed. Sessions can be held either remotely or in person, GUADEC BoF rooms on meet.gnome.org will be available for each track. If you are hosting in person and want to allow remote attendance you will need to use your own computers, cameras, and microphones to connect to the remote conference room.

    We look forward to receiving your BoF and Workshop proposals and making GUADEC 2024 a memorable event for everyone. For more details or to register, please visit guadec.org.

    We can’t wait to see you at GUADEC 2024!

    Submit a Proposal
  • Exciting Updates on the GNOME Development Initiative and Sovereign Tech Fund

    Exciting Updates on the GNOME Development Initiative and Sovereign Tech Fund

    GNOME Foundation Executive Director Holly Million had a call this week with Tara Tarakiyee, our program manager at Sovereign Tech Fund (STF), providing him with an update on the project work taking place under the Foundation’s current contract with STF and the Foundation’s plans to continue and expand the work. We’re thrilled to share those updates with the greater community here!

    Key Updates

    • The contracted work continues to progress, and the Sovereign Tech Fund is very encouraged by what has been accomplished to date.
    • The areas of work currently being funded by STF are planned to continue and to be strengthened and expanded as part of our new, permanent GNOME Development Initiative, as described in our draft strategic plan: foundation.gnome.org/strategicplan
    • The Foundation is reorganizing the project and hiring an additional program manager to work with current managers on the new Initiative. We are finalizing a contract for transitional work with the new manager and will make a formal announcement next week.
    • We hope to significantly increase the amount of development work happening through the Initiative with a process that allows community suggestions for needed work and an application process for grants for proposed work.
    • The Foundation recently applied to the Open Tech Fund to strengthen the Initiative, including proposing to hire a permanent full-time program manager and to invest in other important work to support our community
    • The Foundation will apply for a new round of contract funding when the Sovereign Tech Fund reopens for applications in mid-June. 
    • We have launched the GNOME Development Fund, which will raise additional support from the community to fuel the development work possible through the Initiative. Starting immediately, all donations made through the Fund will build the Initiative. This Fund page will continue to develop, with counters, a backer list, tiered benefits for backers at differing levels, and badges coming next. Donate today to support the future of GNOME. gnome.org/donate

    In other exciting news, the Foundation has new professional bookkeeping systems in place, completed a financial review in preparation for a required financial audit next year, and at the completion of the second quarter of this fiscal year, the Foundation is performing under budget and is on track in our commitment to having a non-deficit year. We will share more details, including graphs and financial details in a separate update soon.

    Learn More about the GNOME Development Fund

  • Introducing the GNOME Foundation’s Five-Year Strategic Plan Draft

    We are thrilled to share the GNOME Foundation’s Draft Five-Year Strategic Plan proposal, a roadmap that sets the stage for our collective journey towards a brighter, more sustainable future. This comprehensive plan encompasses our goals, priorities, and strategies aimed at propelling the GNOME ecosystem forward in an exciting new direction. This draft was created over a six-month period through a process that involved research, individual interviews, and group discussions with staff, board, and members. This draft has been reviewed by the Board and is now ready to share with the greater community.

    We invite all members of our community to review this strategic plan, which outlines our vision for the next five years. Your insights, perspectives, and expertise are crucial as we move forward together. Your feedback will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of GNOME, ensuring that our work continues to empower our users worldwide and drive open-source innovation.

    Please take the time to review the strategic plan and share your thoughts with us. Whether you’re a developer, designer, user, or advocate, your voice matters. Your input will be collected ahead of GUADEC, where we will provide additional opportunities to ask questions, give feedback, and offer ideas. Together we can create a stronger open source ecosystem that meets the diverse needs of our global community.

    Read the Strategic Plan

  • Black Python Devs Join the GNOME Foundation Nonprofit Umbrella

    The GNOME Foundation and Black Python Devs are proud to announce that our organizations have entered into a fiscal sponsorship agreement for the mutual benefit of our communities and the greater open source world. We are thrilled to share that the GNOME Foundation will now serve as the nonprofit umbrella for Black Python Devs (BDP). The GNOME Foundation will hold BPD’s assets, accept and process donations, and perform administrative functions on behalf of BPDs, in exchange for a fee that supports the GNOME Foundation.

    The GNOME Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, envisions a world where everyone is empowered by technology they can trust. Since its inception as a project in August 1997 and its establishment as a foundation in August 2000, GNOME has been dedicated to creating a diverse and sustainable free software personal computing ecosystem. Our open source software guarantees certain freedoms for end users, ensuring they have control over their computing environments. With two annual releases, the GNOME desktop is the default environment for many major Linux distributions.

    Black Python Devs(BPDs) is a global community hoping to increase the participation of Black and Colo(u)red Pythonistas in the greater Python Developer Community. Our goal is to become the largest community of Black Python Developers in the world and establish our community as a source for diverse leaders in local, regional, and global Python communities. The organization works to establish guidance, mentorship, and career support for Black Pythonistas around the world, and it also creates opportunities for the Python community to invest in local communities of Black Python Devs members. The organization aims to increase the participation of Black Python Devs members in existing Python community programs, events, and initiatives, and it also continues the development and growth of Black Python Devs members by establishing open-source programs.



    This new partnership will support Black Python Devs in their fundraising efforts, membership growth, and program development while also providing fiscal support to the GNOME Foundation. By joining forces, we aim to foster a more inclusive tech community and empower more individuals through open source software.

    Portrait of Holly Million

    “I saw a post on the FOSS Foundation email list sharing that Black Python Devs was seeking a fiscal sponsor for their important work. I immediately reached out to Jay Miller to offer the GNOME Foundation as a place where BPDs could find a welcoming home. I was impressed with Jay’s leadership and his vision for BPDs. One of my key goals for the GNOME Foundation is to create more channels to nurture and include diverse groups in the GNOME community and in the OS world, in general, to create a more inclusive, more representative, more empowered community for our shared work. I am very enthusiastic about this fiscal sponsorship and look forward to seeing BPDs continue to grow and have a positive impact,” said Holly Million, executive director of the GNOME Foundation.

    “We were pleasantly shocked when the GNOME foundation reached out to us!” said Jay Miller, Founder of Black Python Devs. “Our community leaders were excited and strongly supported our partnership plans. It’s Important that we push beyond our comfort in order to regularly make an impact. The guidance we’ve received in this process already has better prepared Black Python Devs for the journey ahead.”

    Portrait of Jay Miller

    This partnership allows Black Python Devs to accept donations as a US nonprofit. Those who want to help financially support the BPDs can now do so at https://blackpythondevs.com. For more information about Black Python Devs, contact leadership@blackpythondevs.com.

This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0.