The Open Source Endowment, a new nonprofit, aims to bring a university-style endowment model to open source by providing long-term, investment-backed funding for widely used but under-resourced FOSS projects.

As a US 501(c)(3) public charity, the organization invests donations to create a permanent capital base. Only annual investment returns are distributed as grants, while the principal remains intact to ensure ongoing funding. This approach mirrors how academic institutions use endowments to finance operations.

The initiative addresses the FOSS ecosystem where critical infrastructure components, such as libraries, language runtimes, packaging systems, and networking tools, support global technology stacks but often depend on small teams or individual maintainers. While foundations and corporate sponsors offer some support, funding remains inconsistent and often tied to short-term business goals.