[no_wizard]

That makes sense, on its face, as to why they don't have a business arm, at least currently.

One thing I would suggest, on its face, is that any time someone has to reach you (as in, the foundation, not you specifically), that introduces friction, even the smallest amount of it, can leave lost donations on the table. If there was a simple page even, that said something like

Do you have a feature you need implemented in Python? Are there features you would like to fast track? For a simple donation, we can prioritize the work you need to grow your business

This with a nice little contact form, would eliminate that friction, rather than being in a situation where I might be reaching out to the wrong wing of the foundation, or not feeling comfortable sending a general inquiry etc.

you could also put a feature page that tracks how much money needed to implement x too, to solicit donations. I've seen this work in other communities. I think Django has gotten funding using this technique before.

Just a thought, I know you guys are doing everything you can and then some, and Python is unique in that its one of the few language communities of its size without any formal corporate benefactor.

[takluyver]

> For a simple donation, we can prioritize the work you need...

I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure a non-profit can't do things like this. If the person giving the money expects a tangible benefit in return, it's not a donation.

[brettcannon]

The specific restriction from my understanding is that a US non-profit that accepts money for a specific thing must spend every penny of that money only on that thing. So if the PSF was given $1,000,000 to solve a specific problem and while trying to do it they go bankrupt they still couldn't touch that money to stay afloat. So non-profits avoid that situation since they typically have enough to survive a year or so, but not enough to be able to restrict what they might need to do with their cash.