Donate Less

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We have a new donation page. But before you go there, I would like to impress upon you this idea:

We would vastly prefer you donate $10/mo for one year ($120 total) than $200 in one lump sum. That’s counter-intuitive, so let me explain.

First of all, cash flow matters just as much to a non-profit as it does to a corporation. If a business only saw revenue once or twice a year — say, in the form of $300,000 cheques — it would need to be very careful with expenses, for fear of one of those cheques disappearing.

And so it is with non-profits. A non-profit built on chasing grants and begging for large cheques is inherently fragile. Financial planning that is based on big, irregular revenue sources is bound to fail sooner or later. Conversely, financial planning based on monthly recurring revenue trends close to reality. The organization is more stable as a result.

Second, if your monthly donation is negligible, you probably won’t worry too much about whether you keep your donation going or not. Maybe you decide $10/mo is such a small number (the price of two coffees in any country where I’ve lived over the past 15 years) that you’re happy to keep on donating at the end of one year? Great! If not? No hard feelings. The consistency still made the $120 figure extremely valuable to us.

We want your donation to represent a number that is very comfortable for you. Personally, I make two larger (for me) donations every month. Out of my bank account in India, I donate $50/mo to a charity in Sikkim. Out of my Canadian bank account, I donate $100/mo to a charity in Nova Scotia. I have enough money available in both countries that these donations will not run out before I die. These are the two most important charities I donate to… but I’m not putting myself at risk by donating to them.

If you value GNOME, we would appreciate your support. But your comfort is essential. $50/mo is too much? Don’t stretch yourself! $25/mo or $15/mo still makes a massive difference. We’re asking all GNOME users, developers, and fans to consider supporting us in this way. (If you’re not sure if you run GNOME, it’s the default desktop on Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, and Red Hat.)

GNOME brings incredible value to the world. This is how you ensure that it continues to exist.

Donate less.

Comments

11 responses to “Donate Less”

2025-06-26

Ashley (Shlee) Hull

I have one question.. fees.

Payment A$10.00 You’ll receive A$9.52 ($114.24 over 12 months)
Fee A$0.48 ($5.76 over 12 months)

Payment A$120.00 You’ll receive A$117.60
Fee A$2.40

The argument you’ve made about monthly donations offering projecting and planning is correct… but I have a feeling that $2 per person per year could turn into real money quickly as donators scale up?

I will change my donations monthly as requested 🙂

Reply
1. 2025-06-26
  
  Steven Deobald
  
  It is true that the credit card processing fee (0.30/transaction) is more expensive over the course of the year — it becomes $3.60 vs. $0.30 for a yearly lump sum. We’re not particularly fond of handing these fees over to credit card companies but it is ultimately worth it for consistency and repeatability. This is one reason we do not offer a monthly donation smaller than $5/mo (on the “alternatives” page), as we do see diminishing returns at a certain point.
  
  There are alternative payment processors which we hope to add, in time, to permit donations without a credit card. At the moment, you can use Stripe Link connected to a bank account to circumvent credit card fees. The percentage fee taken by Stripe itself is flat, so it does not matter whether you are donating monthly or annually.
  
  Hope that helps!
  
  Reply
2025-06-26

RedwoodSec

I must disagree with this proposition. You might also chase off one-time donors, which is why nonprofits have an Executive Director and fiscal planning to save for unforeseen circumstances.

I’ve never heard a nonprofit make an announcement like this before. I understand the need for predictable funds, but don’t jeopardize your organization’s future.

Reply
1. 2025-06-26
  
  James Potter
  
  Orgs ask for recurring revenue all the time.
  
  Reply
2. 2025-06-26
  
  Steven Deobald
  
  Your reply seems to assume we receive a lot of one-off donations every year. We absolutely do not.
  
  The belief that asking for recurring donations is somehow jeopardizing the future of the Foundation rests on a false dichotomy.
  
  We still permit one-off donations, both with Stripe and PayPal, on the same page. Existing donors who prefer making one-off donations are welcome to continue doing so. We may have a preference for recurring donations but we’re still extremely grateful for every donation we receive, regardless of the delivery schedule. ❤️
  
  Reply
2025-06-28

Fulano

Hello, just checked the $5 tier (I wish I could donate more, but I’m from a third world country, and after applying exchange rates $10 is not “a small number” here), and it has “Name on website and quarterly newsletter subscription”. Is there any option to remain anonymous? I don’t want my name anywhere, I just want to quietly help gnome somehow.

Reply
1. 2025-06-28
  
  Steven Deobald
  
  First off, thank you so much for considering a donation! Please do not feel that any donation is more important than another. Everyone’s contribution makes a huge difference, in aggregate. It’s your intention to support GNOME existentially which matters, not how much you give. As mentioned in the blog post, the most important thing is that donors are *comfortable.* We don’t want to put anyone in an awkward financial position or to harm themselves by making a contribution.
  
  All Friends of GNOME are equal. No one gets any additional benefit because of how much they donate. It’s not fair to discriminate against any donor. If someone cannot afford $5/mo at all, they can become a Friend of GNOME by becoming a contributor to the project. All contributors are friends of GNOME (regardless of capitalization) by definition. 🙂
  
  Secondly, thank you very much for the feedback! I’ve updated the Alternatives page to make this clearer:
  
  https://donate.gnome.org/alternatives
  
  Reply
2025-06-28

David Dohmen

Suggestion: It seems the interesting part to you is the recurring nature, which brings planability.
Why not offer other intervals to save on processing fees and still benefit from continuous cashflows.
I would much rather donate every 6 months or Quarter and happily have that recurring, than donating every month, knowing so much is lost to transaction fees.
That would also make the barrier of entry lower for people who can maybe only afford 1€ per month or so.

Lastly: Do you have an IBAN account? That way I could simply set up my own recurring donations without any fees.

Reply
1. 2025-06-28
  
  Steven Deobald
  
  Thanks. We’ve considered all this, but the added benefit of additional schedules does not outweigh the complexity costs, at this point. We’re still early in the game. 🙂
  
  Also, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, transaction fees are linear except for $0.30/txn baseline credit card fees, so wider cycles do not really make much of a difference. People seem repeatedly confused by this point, as many payment providers nickle and dime their customers, even if they are nonprofits.
  
  Re: IBAN – We would prefer to keep donations in-system, as it’s easier to track who is donating (which we are legally obligated to do, as a 501c3 nonprofit). However, this is something we can look into if we build a way of tracking IBAN contributions automatically. We do not have the resources to process these manually right now.
  
  HTH,
  -s-
  
  Reply
2025-06-29

Matheo

What do you thonk about LiberaPay?
I currently develop how I would do donations in future and strongly consider Liberapay (over Stripe) for recuring donations .

Reply
1. 2025-06-29
  
  Steven Deobald
  
  Hi Matheo. We’ve looked at LiberaPay and it’s certainly a strong option to consider in the future. There are quite a few constraints around it which prevent it from being the only payment option we’d provide, though. So if we have the bandwidth to add LiberaPay in the future, it will be an addition, not a replacement, to the current payment system.
  
  Reply