PlugWiki

oss-sponsors-fundraising skill (samber): design an OSS sponsorship program

Designs an open-source maintainer's sponsorship program: tiers, rewards, the ask and the corporate and grant routes.

Installs
12.4K
on skills.sh
Stars
7
on GitHub
Files
6
besides SKILL.md
Updated
Nov 2026
last repo commit

oss-sponsors-fundraising designs the sponsorship program of an open-source project: who is asked, for how much, in exchange for what, through which platform, and how the maintainer stays able to deliver it in two years. It first tests whether sponsorship is the right instrument, runs a grant lane, compares four program shapes (visibility, gratitude, retainer, access), builds a tier ladder for individuals and companies, sizes rewards against delivery and opens the corporate path.

It triggers on "how do I get sponsors", "fix my GitHub Sponsors tiers", "FUNDING.yml" or "why does nobody sponsor a widely used project". It bundles no scripts. SKILL.md says this is the maintainer's side, and sends a company deciding what to fund to oss-sponsors-brand-strategy.

Good for

  • Maintainers setting up GitHub Sponsors, Open Collective or FUNDING.yml
  • Maintainers of widely used projects nobody sponsors
  • Maintainers who want a company to fund maintenance work

Install oss-sponsors-fundraising

Claude Code

  1. 1

    Copy this prompt.

    Install the oss-sponsors-fundraising skill in Claude Code. Run this command:

/plugin marketplace add samber/developer-relations-skills
/plugin install developer-relations-skills@developer-relations-skills

Then check that it loaded and tell me how to use it.
  2. 2

    Paste it into Claude Code. It shows the change and asks before running it.

The README recommends installing the whole collection because its skills reference each other, and oss-sponsors-fundraising names other skills in the collection to hand work to. The whole-collection routes add all 93 skills in the repo (counted from the git tree); the repo holds no hooks, agents, commands or MCP server files, and 14 of its skills bundle a script. Pick one route per agent.

From the project README. Source.

What's in the skill

When it loads

Designs a maintainer-side open-source sponsorship program - the tier ladder and its pricing for individual and corporate sponsors, rewards that stay deliverable at ten times the sponsor count, funding-goal and sustainability framing, and the invoice-and-entity path a company needs before it can pay. Use whenever a maintainer asks how to get sponsors or funding for a project, sets up or fixes GitHub Sponsors, Open Collective or FUNDING.yml, writes sponsor tiers, rewards or a sponsorship page, wonders why nobody sponsors a widely used project, considers sponsorware, or wants a company to fund maintenance work - even if they only say the project is unsustainable. Not the company side - use samber/developer-relations-skills@oss-sponsors-brand-strategy.

Sections in SKILL.md

  1. Interview
  2. Step 1 - Test whether sponsorship is even the right instrument
  3. Step 1b - Run the grant lane
  4. Step 2 - Brainstorm the program shape, then choose one
  5. Step 3 - Build the ladder for two buyers
  6. Step 4 - Size every reward against delivery, not appeal
  7. Step 5 - Write the ask as a bounded commitment
  8. Step 6 - Make the ask unavoidable, and the project machine-findable
  9. Step 7 - Open the corporate lane
  10. Step 8 - Write down what money does not buy
  11. Step 9 - Measure the program, not the applause
  12. Invocation examples
  13. Deliverable
  14. Goal monthly target, what it buys, by when
  15. Instrument fit why sponsorship, and what else was recommended
  16. Audience individual vs company mix, named dependent companies

Key facts

Author
Samuel Berthe (named in SKILL.md metadata, LICENSE and the plugin manifest)
License
MIT (LICENSE file, SKILL.md frontmatter, plugin.json and marketplace.json agree)
Skill version
1.0.2 (SKILL.md metadata)
Installs on skills.sh
12,402 (Nov 2, 2026)
GitHub stars
8 for the whole samber/developer-relations-skills repo (Nov 2, 2026)
Last repo commit
Nov 1, 2026
Audits on skills.sh
Gen Agent Trust Hub: pass, Socket: pass, Snyk: warn
What it includes
7 files in the git tree: SKILL.md, evals/evals.json and 5 files under references/. No scripts.
Needs
SKILL.md lists nothing to install
Part of
The developer-relations-skills plugin: 93 skill folders in the git tree
Works in
The README documents installs for Claude Code, Claude.ai, Codex, Cursor and Gemini CLI, all for the whole set

What it includes

  • Asks 12 questions; answers 3, 4 and 8 re-rank the program shapes.

    Asks 12 questions; answers 3, 4 and 8 (date, mandate, effort ceiling) re-rank the program shapes.

    Interview

  • Checks whether sponsorship, employment, a grant or commercial revenue fits the goal.

    Step 1: Test the instrument

  • Qualifies licence, payee, geography and maturity gates and ranks five grant families.

    Step 1b: Grant lane

  • Compares visibility, gratitude, retainer and access programs and recommends one.

    Step 2: Program shape

  • Applies six rules, including pricing company placement by the audience it reaches.

    Six rules, including pricing company placement by audience reached and three to five live tiers.

    Step 3: Tier ladder

  • Stress-tests every reward at ten times the current sponsor count.

    Step 4: Reward sizing

  • Turns the goal into units a reader recognises and a first goal that closes soon.

    Turns the goal into units a reader recognises and sets a first goal that closes this quarter.

    Step 5: The ask

  • Covers FUNDING.yml, funding links, health signals and four company routes.

    FUNDING.yml, funding links and health signals, then four mechanisms for company money.

    Steps 6-7: Findability and corporate lane

  • Publishes what money does not buy and tracks five metrics.

    Publishes what money does not buy and tracks five metrics against a self-set pass threshold.

    Steps 8-9: Boundaries and measurement

From the official docs

Permissions

Low risk

oss-sponsors-fundraising is interview and planning instructions with no scripts, and it may save notes to devrel-context.md.

What it can do

  • Read your data
  • Create and change things
  • Delete things
  • Read-only mode

Watch out for

  • Published GitHub Sponsors prices are permanent

    SKILL.md says a published tier's price on GitHub Sponsors can never be edited, only retired and replaced, with existing sponsors left on the old tier. Agree the ladder with the skill before you publish it. github.com

  • It may save notes to devrel-context.md

    SKILL.md tells Claude to keep task and project context in devrel-context.md when memory lives in a file, or in the memory system your tool already uses. Check the file before you commit it. github.com

  • The whole-set install adds 93 skills, 14 with scripts

    The README says to install every skill. The git tree has 93 skill folders, and 14 of them hold .py or .sh files. This skill bundles no scripts, and the tree holds no hooks, agents or MCP config files. github.com

Technical details
Turning on read-onlySKILL.md describes no read-only mode.
Sign-in and keysSKILL.md names no account, key or token.
Scopes

  • Claude writes a sponsorship program brief in the conversation

  • Revenue goals, entity and country details you share go into the conversation

  • Writes devrel-context.md when memory lives in a file

Questions

What does oss-sponsors-fundraising do?

It designs a sponsorship program for an open-source project. You get a program brief covering the goal, tiers and rewards, the platform, the ask page copy, a corporate target list and the boundaries on what sponsorship buys.

How do I install it?

Use the install box at the top. The README says to install every skill in the repo, because the skills point to each other. The box shows the whole-set route for each app.

Will it set up my GitHub Sponsors page?

SKILL.md covers the design: tiers, prices, FUNDING.yml and where funding links go, and it has you verify every funding link resolves. It warns that a published GitHub Sponsors tier price can never be edited, only retired and replaced.

How much money can I expect?

SKILL.md quotes Filippo Valsorda measuring individual sponsorship at under $1,000 a month for a widely depended-on library, and says that for a goal of replacing a salary on a project with a few hundred users, it recommends employment or a commercial tier with sponsorship as a supplement.

Is it safe to install?

The skill bundles no scripts. Your revenue goals, legal entity, country and dependent companies go into your conversation. The corporate step names companies that depend on your project. The whole-set install adds 93 skills, 14 of which bundle scripts.

Is it for companies that want to sponsor?

No. SKILL.md says a company deciding which projects to fund is on the wrong side of the table and routes it to samber/developer-relations-skills@oss-sponsors-brand-strategy.

Information

updated Nov 2, 2026

Repository
samber/developer-relations-skills
Folder
skills/oss-sponsors-fundraising

samber/developer-relations-skillsskills.sh

Sources

Docs, issue trackers and discussions this page is built from.

Show all 3
  1. README · github.com
  2. oss-sponsors-fundraising SKILL.md · github.com
  3. LICENSE · github.com

Updated Nov 2, 2026.