Support the open source projects you love this Valentine’s Day

While everyone likes flowers and chocolates, why not show your love for your favorite open source projects this Valentine’s and give appreciation to the maintainers who keep them running?

Many of the open source projects we rely on every day are maintained by dedicated volunteers. Sponsoring projects isn’t just about altruism, it’s about investing in the future. Many maintainers work on open source projects in their spare time. Sponsorships can help them dedicate more time to the projects you depend on. With financial support, maintainers can help cover costs such as development and hosting.

When you sponsor a maintainer, you’re helping them continue their work and letting them know you value the creativity and love they’ve poured into their project. For this Valentine’s Day, let’s show love to the maintainers who keep our favorite projects alive and thriving.

The benefits of financial sponsorship

Sponsorship is a tangible way to show support for the open source community. It can be a huge morale boost, as well as bring visibility and validation. Sponsored projects often gain more attention, leading to a virtuous cycle of more contributors and users, which results in better software for everyone.

Getting started: How to best invest in open source

1. Identify critical dependencies: Review your project’s dependencies to identify which open source libraries and tools are crucial to your operations. If you use tools like npm, pip, or maven, you can review their dependencies and prioritize which are critical to your project’s success.
2. Evaluate the project activity: Check the recent and trending activity of repositories and look for signs of contributions, shipped features, bug fixes, active maintenance, and community engagement. Helpful metrics like recent commits, issue resolution, and community engagement are all good markers for where funding could help. Projects with a high impact but low funding could be great candidates to prioritize for sponsorship.
3. Engage with the project: Take the opportunity to look at the issues and contribution guidelines. Try to understand their funding needs and how your support makes a difference. But also consider investing in ways beyond just financial support. You could provide bug fixes if you feel confident in your code. You could also take the time to tell someone about the project and why you think it’s awesome.

Return the love

Maintainers can show love for their sponsors as well. Sponsors appreciate knowing their contribution is making a difference. Whether it’s a simple mention on social media to acknowledge their contribution, featuring them on your GitHub Sponsors profile, exclusive updates and behind-the-scenes insights about your project and community, or even a brief personalized thank-you message, tokens of appreciation can help bring more funding your way.

Shower our favorite open source projects with a little extra love

This Valentine’s Day, let’s show our favorite projects a bit more appreciation. Whether it’s a heartfelt contribution to fix bugs or docs, spreading the word about why it’s a great project and helping people use it, or a sweet one-time donation, every bit helps keep our beloved digital world turning.

Ready to start sponsoring? Visit GitHub Sponsors and find the projects that matter most to you.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all the open source contributors and supporters out there! And remember, you don’t need to wait for a special occasion like Valentine’s Day to show your appreciation for maintainers—every day is a perfect day to support open source! 💖