What dāna teaches us about open source sustainability

Over the past week, something beautiful has been happening in the Mautic community. We launched an emergency fundraiser to address a significant revenue gap, and to date, 51 awesome humans have already contributed, with amounts ranging from $10 to over $1,500. Two organisations from countries benefiting from our regional pricing have become members and another from here in the UK just signed up. People are sharing the fundraiser, having conversations, and stepping up in whatever way they can.

What strikes me most isn’t only the financial support, though we’re genuinely grateful for the $9,745 raised so far. It’s the principle being demonstrated in action. A principle I’ve been reflecting on a lot lately, one that comes from my Buddhist practice but applies perfectly to open source sustainability.

Dāna.

What is dāna?

Dāna is a Pali word often translated as ‘generosity’ or ‘giving,’ but that translation doesn’t quite capture the full meaning. Dāna is more nuanced. It’s about giving freely, without expectation of return or recognition. It’s about understanding that we’re all interconnected, and that supporting others ultimately supports ourselves and our communities. In many Buddhist traditions, dāna is seen as the foundation of all other practice.

I wrote a bit about this on my recent series reflecting on the five precepts when we encountered the second precept, avoiding taking the not given and the positive counterpart, practicing open handed generosity.

In Buddhist practice, dāna isn’t transactional. You don’t give to get. You give because you can, because others need, and because generosity itself cultivates something important in both giver and receiver. The traditional phrase that captures this well is:

Give what you can, take what you need.

This isn’t charity in a patronising sense. It’s mutual support. It’s recognising that sometimes you have abundance to share, and sometimes you’re the one who needs support. Both positions are valid. Both are necessary for healthy communities.

Dāna and open source

I’ve been thinking about how closely this principle applies to open source software.

When you use Mautic, or any open source tool, you’re already taking what you need. Maybe you need marketing automation but can’t afford proprietary platforms. Maybe you need self-hosting for data sovereignty. Maybe you need extensibility that commercial tools don’t offer. The software is there, freely available, built and maintained by a community. Take what you need.

But dāna is a two-way principle. If you can give back, you should. Not out of obligation or guilt, but because that’s how sustainable communities work. Give what you can.

What you give might be code contributions if you’re a developer. Documentation if you’re a technical writer. Community support if you have time and experience. Financial contribution if you have budget. Advocacy if you have networks. All of these are dāna. All of these sustain the community.

The problem we’re facing in open source generally, and in Mautic specifically right now, is that the ‘take what you need’ part works really well. The ‘give what you can’ part is harder. Not because people are selfish or don’t care, but because we haven’t normalised it as central to how open source works.

The current reality

Earlier this year, Mautic faced a $50,000 revenue gap from membership changes and re-budgeting decisions. For a project operating on lean margins with a small core team and volunteer community, that’s significant. We built a recovery plan, made cost reductions, refocused our revenue strategy. That’s been a fundamental part of remaining financially solvent, but we needed some runway to make it work.

So we launched a fundraiser, denominated in US dollars for simplicity. Our target is $40,000 minimum to keep the lights on and prevent deeper cutbacks, and $60,000 as an ideal to bring back some critical growth initiatives. End of March deadline.

I’ll be honest, I was nervous. Asking for money feels uncomfortable, even when the need is genuine and the cause is important. Especially in a community built on freely available software, but then I remembered dāna. This isn’t begging. This is inviting people to participate in sustainable community.

Give what you can, take what you need.

What we’re seeing

The response has been genuinely moving.

I’ve had conversations with people sharing how Mautic has impacted their lives. Someone who used it to manage their wedding invitations and guest list. Businesses that have driven massive growth through marketing automation, resulting in life-changing revenue increases. Organisations that rely on Mautic specifically because it respects user privacy and enables data sovereignty.

In our first week, 51 people have contributed. $9,745 raised. Two new community-tier memberships from countries benefiting from our recently launched regional pricing structure - which is exactly what we hoped that initiative would enable - and one just came in from the UK, too. Two new individual memberships also came in this week. Small one-time donations came in through GitHub and Open Collective.

What’s particularly meaningful is the range: $10 contributions sitting alongside $1,500 contributions. Both are equally valued, and both represent people giving what they can.

This is dāna in action.

The person contributing $10 might be using Mautic for a small project or just learning marketing automation. That $10 might represent a meaningful amount in their personal or business budget. They’re giving what they can.

The organisation contributing $1,500 might be running significant operations on Mautic, saving thousands or tens of thousands on proprietary platform costs. They’re giving what they can.

Both are essential. Both are appreciated. Both are sustaining the community.

Why this matters beyond Mautic

We’re making real progress toward our minimum $40,000 target, though we still have significant distance to cover before the end of March deadline. This isn’t only about Mautic’s immediate financial situation, though.

This is about proving that community-driven software can be sustainable. That privacy-respecting alternatives to surveillance capitalism can exist and thrive. That we don’t have to accept a future where all our tools are owned by corporations extracting value from our data.

Open source only works if the dāna principle is active. If people and organisations that benefit from community-built software contribute back to its sustainability. Not everyone can contribute the same amount. Not everyone can contribute in the same way. But everyone can contribute something. I truly believe this.

Right now, we estimate there are around 40,000 active Mautic instances worldwide. If only half of those instance owners contributed just $10, we’d have $200,000. This is a simple thought experiment, but it shows the potential. That amount would be transformative. It would enable us to accelerate development dramatically, position Mautic much more competitively against proprietary tools, and deliver significantly better experiences for our users.

We’re not asking everyone to contribute the same amount. We’re asking everyone to give what - and how - they can. Perhaps this is the message that open source needs to adopt?

An invitation

If you use Mautic, or benefit from open source marketing automation existing as an option, I invite you to practice dāna.

Give what you can:

• Individual contributions of any amount make a collective difference. Even $10 matters when multiplied across a community. Contribute to the fundraiser.

• Mautic membership provides ongoing sustainable income beyond this immediate crisis. Individual membership starts at $100 (pro-rated by country), organizational membership at $1,200 (also pro-rated). Half our annual budget comes from memberships. It’s genuinely the lifeblood of the project. Explore membership.

• Larger contributions or partnerships might be an option if you’re part of a larger organization that uses or benefits from Mautic.  My inbox is open at ruth.cheesley@mautic.org. Let’s have that conversation.

• Non-financial support is a great way to practice dāna if you can’t contribute financially to open source projects right now. For Mautic, share the fundraiser with your networks and why it’s important to you. Spend a bit of time helping to answer questions in the community forums. Write documentation or work on other low- and no-code tasks (check our backlog of low and no code tasks). Test new features and bug fixes. Advocate for Mautic in your professional circles. All of this is dāna. Check our contribution guidelines if you need a steer on getting started.

Take what you need: 

Use Mautic to build your marketing automation. Self-host it for digital sovereignty. Extend it to meet your specific needs. Learn marketing automation skills through experimentation without per-contact pricing restrictions. Build your business using privacy-respecting tools.

That’s what it’s there for. That’s what the community built it for.

A closing reflection

Every morning this past week, I’ve smiled seeing contribution notifications in our Slack channel and messages in my inbox. Not just because of the financial relief, though that’s real and important. But because each notification represents someone understanding that sustainable communities require active participation.

Every contribution, regardless of size, is a vote for digital independence and for privacy-respecting alternatives. It’s a vote for the principle that community-driven tools can compete with corporate platforms. It’s a vote for the idea that technology can be built differently, governed differently, and sustained differently.

Dāna teaches us that giving and receiving are both essential practices. Neither is superior to the other. Both are necessary for healthy communities.

Right now, Mautic needs the giving part of that equation. We’re making progress, but we need continued momentum to reach our target by the end of March.

If you’ve already contributed, thank you. Genuinely. You’re sustaining something important.

If you haven’t yet, consider what you can give. Not out of obligation, but because that’s how we build sustainable alternatives to platforms that don’t respect our privacy or independence.

Give what you can. Take what you need. Together we go further, faster.

Support Mautic’s fundraiser at: mautic.org/2026-fundraiser

Explore membership at: mautic.org/membership

Questions or want to discuss larger organisational support? Email me at: ruth.cheesley@mautic.org