[scrollaway]

If you were to donate $1000 to "open source", not much would actually get anywhere useful IMO.

On top of this, as a company, donating is… complicated. If you can do it, great, but it's often easier to find a project that has a support contract and pay for that. It gives you a real and justified expense and is in general more stable income for the devs.

Furthermore, a renewable contract gives the project predictable income, which is instrinsically worth more to the project.

If you have $1k and just want to give it away once, and want it to end up in open source, I think what's best is you pick your personal favourite project and double check they both need and can take the money (then move down the list if they don't). But if you can afford to give a recurring donation, go that route instead! Patreon is a good avenue for smaller projects that don't necessarily offer contracts of their own, but at that point there's a lot of money that goes into their fee.

Edit: Another potential avenue is donating directly to a developer for their open source work (Github Sponsors will let you do that), assuming there's a dev you like a lot for that.

[jermaustin1]

As a company, I typically find donating to a company/foss/whatever that "advertises" their donors is the best way to give them money, and it be an advertising expense.

[einpoklum]

"Best" for your company's business interests? :-(

[jermaustin1]

That is small minded... It is best for all interests. I get a bonafide write-off, they get bonafide money.

I also pay developers for a commercial licenses for FOSS offerings, if they are able, that I never intend on using because the project looked promising.

I donate thousands of dollars a year between charities and open source software, Why wouldn't I do it in the most tax advantageous way?

[myself248]

I took it as "best" in "most likely to actually reach a person who can write a check" in the corporate bureaucracy.

In most of the companies I'm familiar with, it's very hard for engineers and their managers to spend money on things that don't have a tangible return, particularly something you can stick an inventory tag on.

Marketing departments, on the other hand, are purpose-built to spend money on intangible things.

I've coached a high-school robotics program that's mostly funded out of the company's marketing budget, which they justify because the students put logos on their machines. Everyone knows we're doing it because we think it's awesome, but we have to call it marketing to slip it past the beancounters.

[fgonzag]

I know you probably agree with me, but supporting an open source project your company's infrastructure depends on has a tangible return (better maintenance on the project). It's just that managers don't see it that way.

[einpoklum]

So, you want to get advertising with money that you write off for tax purposes. In many world states that would constitute tax fraud. And have the reputation of those FOSS developers benefit you, to boot. I'm sorry, that's a bit much from a small mind such as mine.

[jrockway]

In the US, pretty much any expense that a business makes as part of running a business is deductible. You do not have to donate to a 501(c)(3) to get a tax break.