Empowering Community-Driven Funding with OpenClimate.fund¶
Tobias Augspurger · Michael Scheiwiller · Andrew Nesbitt · Richard Littauer · Benjamin Nickolls
December 18, 2024
We're launching OpenClimate.fund, a community-driven initiative to support open source projects that address climate change and biodiversity loss. These are among the most pressing challenges of our time, yet open source efforts in these areas remain alarmingly underfunded. While significant resources are being spent on areas such as artificial intelligence and security, the environmental sector is largely left empty-handed when it comes to open source solutions. It's time to change that.
OpenClimate.fund aims to bridge this gap by funding an ecosystem built on transparency, trust, and collaboration to advance climate-friendly technologies and measurable environmental impact.
A Community-Driven Funding Approach¶
In our first funding round, we’re introducing a “positive snowball system" to empower the community and drive meaningful change. Here’s what you can do:
- Identify a high impact project missing in the OpenSustain.tech directory.
- Submit it through our review process using the Contributing Guide, which outlines the steps for nominating impactful open source initiatives.
- Nominate another project from the directory to receive a 100€ gift and a heartfelt thank-you message.
To minimize overhead, this initial round will focus on projects that have been active within the last six months and accept donations through known donation platforms like Open Source Collective or GitHub Sponsors. Despite rigorous data mining with our partner Ecosyste.ms, only 104 eligible projects have been identified so far at the date of launch — underscoring the urgent need for this initiative. Our own experience has also shown us that donations in this area are so rare that many projects don't even bother to ask for them. If your project is already listed but not yet proposed, simply add donation information about your GitHub organisation or open source project and it will automatically be included for Round 1.
With a pilot fund of 10,000€, we are aware that this can only be a drop in the ocean considering the 2,200+ projects on OpenSustain.tech. Our goal is to spark a broader conversation about building a sustainable ecosystem for open source solutions tackling global environmental challenges.
Preparing for Round 2¶
We believe that investing in the right open source projects can create a cascading effect, amplifying impact and accelerating sustainable transformation. We can no longer rely on black-box knowledge creation, because the decisions we make today are so critical. That’s why this first funding round is just the beginning.
Our long-term goal is to establish a network of organizations and individuals committed to creating a transparent and equitable funding model for climate-related open source projects. By applying open science principles to the distribution process, we aim to identify where our investments can have the greatest global impact on the open source ecosystem. Rather than focusing on seed funding for new development, our priority is to cover the essential costs of established open source projects that serve as foundational infrastructure for computing in this field.
Similar to our first report, we combine quantitative methods with qualitative insights to identify areas where funding can have the greatest impact.
To achieve this, we analyze project data such as:
- Dependents
- Citations
- Downloads
- The Development Distribution Score
- Issue frequency
- and many more..
Our goal is to evaluate and maximize the impact of individual projects. In addition, we integrate this data with interviews, gap analyses, and urgency analytics for key topics highlighted in the IPBES Global Assessment and IPCC Reports. This process allows us to create a detailed open science report explaining how our distribution metric was developed. This time, we’re going beyond analysis—we’re transforming these insights into actionable outcomes.
Thanks to the support of Ecosyste.ms Funds and Open Source Collective, we will have the right technology partners to channel funds directly to all organisations, projects and their dependencies. But scaling this effort requires more than technology - it requires a collective effort.
Join Us in Disrupting the Status Quo¶
Are you ready to harness the power of openness to combat the destruction of our natural world? Whether you’re an individual, an organization, or an investor, there’s a place for you in this movement. Together, we can ensure that open source innovation drives a sustainable future.
Visit OpenClimate.fund today to learn more, nominate projects, spread the word with #openclimatefund, get in touch with Michael or Tobias and follow us on Mastodon.