Presented at All Things Open 2023 Presented by Carol Huang & Mike Fix - Stripe Title: Scaling an Open Source Sponsorship Program Abstract: ​​We already know this: the open-source ecosystem needs further monetary investment from the companies that benefit most from it. Likewise, companies say they want to participate in these initiatives, but find it hard to dedicate resources to open source funding when there isn’t a clear ROI. This talk discusses how the Open Source Program Office at Stripe built a scalable, sustainable open source sponsorship model that aligns internal company incentives with those of open source maintainers and the community at large. We go over the unique “platformization” of our OSPO that allowed us to create multiple funding models, such as BYOB (Bring Your Own Budget), and share lessons learned from this experience as well as other OSPOs. Find more info about All Things Open: On the web: https://www.allthingsopen.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/AllThingsOpen LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/all-things-open/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allthingsopen/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AllThingsOpen Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@allthingsopen Threads: https://www.threads.net/@allthingsopen 2023 conference: https://2023.allthingsopen.org/

1. Scaling an open source
sponsorship program
All Things Open
Mike Fix and Carol Huang
October 16th, 2023

2. Technical Program Manager, Developer
Relations, Stripe
Head of Open Source, Stripe
Open Source Summit North America — 2023
Mike Fix
Carol Huang
Hello there

3. Stages of a corporate open source sponsorship program
Launching a pilot
Growing your program
Tactics for operating at scale
Future opportunities
What we’ll talk about
1
2
3
4
5
Open Source Summit North America — 2023

4. What’s the problem?
Scaling corporate open source

5. Sustainable. Maintainers should
be able to rely upon this money to
make decisions that impact their
future.
Maintainer-first. We ask the
maintainers what they want and what
they need. They remain the leaders of
their project and roadmaps.
Impact-driven. Provide enough
money to make a tangible impact
in the maintainers life.
Coming up with investment principles
Stripe example

6. Pilot
Cohorts 1, 2, 3…
Platform
Stages of our sponsorship program
1
2
3
Stripe example

7. Symbiotic
Self-serving
Altruistic
Recursive, reinforcing
Looking inward
Looking outward
Kicking off
Pilot

8. Pilot
Testing your hypothesis
Launching the program
Remember: track your progress towards
or alignment with your success criteria.
● Select projects in alignment with your
principles
● Set your hypothesis
● Define success ahead of time
● Ensure you can measure success
● Launch!

9. Cohorts 1, 2, 3…
Growing the program
Repeat

10. Expand
Test other hypotheses (business goals!)
● DevRel: Improve DX (developer experience)
● Sales: Help close a win
● Product: Unblock a launch
● Eng: Scale out your team

11. Tactics for operating at scale
Creating a platform

12. Support our expensive dependencies or
speed up common workflows.
Bring-your-own-Budget
Save costs
Grow revenue
Support any company-wide initiative.
Supported by investing in the projects
that make money.
Allow other teams to participate
Example: sponsorship menu

13. Scaling the program
Relationships
● Phase I: one point of contact

14. Scaling the program
Relationships
● Phase I: one point of contact
● Phase IIa: one program → point of contact

15. Scaling the program
Relationships
● Phase I: one point of contact
● Phase IIa: one program → point of contact
● Phase IIb: one program → multiple points of contact

16. Scaling the program
Product team points of contact
DevRel points of contact
Relationships
Pros:
● Know how to literally be a
developer advocate
● Sharing knowledge by their
default role in the org (on the
same team)
Pros:
● Great subject matter expertise
● Very close with product team,
able to closely monitor feedback
loop

17. Scaling the program
Product team points of contact
DevRel points of contact
Lessons learned
● Have DAs specialize in their
project maintainers’ specialities
● Give a crash course in developer
relations and more
structure/support

18. Scaling the program
Relationships
● Phase I: one point of contact
● Phase IIa: one program → point of contact
● Phase IIb: one program → multiple points of contact
● Phase III: Moving towards one intake

19. Scaling the program
Budget renewal
● Use the budget review process to your favor
● Partner with procurement, finance & strategy, accounts
payable

20. +
Procurement
Example: partner up

21. ● Great for teams
● Open source native
● Budgeting/expense
tooling
● Invoiced billing
● Great support
● Employment benefits!
● Great for creators
● Wide reaching global
support
● Content tools
● Not as open-source
native
Sponsorship platforms
Example: pick your platform
Patreon
Open Collective
GitHub
● Great for individuals
● Open source native
● Ubiquitous
● Invoiced billing
● Org sponsorships

22. Open source economy
Funding platforms

23. Looking ahead
Future opportunities for impact
● What can you do with your expertise, company
backing, or people power?
○ Healthcare
○ Project/product management aid
○ Financial or other “admin” guidance
○ Shared infrastructure/tooling
○ Others?

24. Mike Fix & Carol Huang
Thank you! Questions?