Donation and sponsorship channels
Tier: Public
Status: v1.1 — Phase 0 accounts live (2026-06-26) at umbraculum.dev/support/; environmental accounting (Stripe Climate, forest stewardship) (2026-05-31)
Audience: maintainers wiring /support, prospective sponsors, community members reviewing payment infrastructure
Related: CORE-DEVELOPMENT-AND-COMMUNITY.md §5, MANIFESTO.md §3.2, umbraculum-brochure support page, community-forum-runbook.md, public-alpha-flip-day-runbook.md
[!IMPORTANT] §5.3 is unchanged. Money and in-kind support never buy vote weight, queue priority, veto immunity, private channels, or feature paywalls. Payment rails are operational detail; governance commitments live in §5.3.
1. Summary
| Kind | Phase 0 channel | URL (target slug) |
|---|---|---|
| Recurring cash | Liberapay (0% platform fee) | https://liberapay.com/Umbraculum/ |
| One-time cash | Buy Me a Coffee (~5% platform fee) | https://buymeacoffee.com/Umbraculum |
| In-kind (compute / credits / infra) | Forum topic or email — no payment button | forum.umbraculum.dev Help or Community policy |
Umbraculum is a solo-maintained project at public alpha. Adding or replacing payment channels (e.g. GitHub Sponsors, Open Collective) is an operational change the community may propose and vote on under §4 when documented triggers fire — not a unilateral maintainer upgrade.
Maintainer runbook for accounts: §3 below. In-kind compute: §4 (read before promising “token donations”).
2. Phase 0 — why two cash channels
| Need | Liberapay | Buy Me a Coffee |
|---|---|---|
| Recurring support | Yes — designed for weekly/monthly/yearly | Optional memberships exist; not primary here |
| One-time tip | No — recurring only; one-off workaround (start then cancel) is poor UX | Yes — one-tap tips, no supporter account required |
| Platform fee | 0% (+ Stripe ~3% processing) | ~5% (+ Stripe processing) |
| OSS alignment | Non-profit, open-source platform | Commercial; acceptable as secondary one-time rail |
| §5.3 / §6 | Donations only; no perk tiers | Use single “support” tier with identical thank-you text only |
Cost to operate: €0 fixed until donations arrive. Prefer Liberapay for recurring (cheaper); Buy Me a Coffee for one-time only.
3. Account setup (maintainer, before flip)
3.0 Email — finance@umbraculum.dev
Use finance@umbraculum.dev for Stripe signup and payment-processor mail — not security@ or conduct@ (those are vuln-report and CoC enforcement only).
Route via Cloudflare Email Routing on umbraculum.dev to the maintainer inbox (same pattern as security@ / conduct@). To fix a typo in the custom address, Edit the routing rule in the dashboard — no need to delete and recreate.
Phase 0 payout rail: Stripe only on Liberapay (and on Buy Me a Coffee when offered). PayPal is not used at alpha — signup friction, poor donor/recipient privacy on Liberapay (payment processors), and no mature legal entity for PayPal Business.
Stripe verification email not arriving at finance@? Manual mail to finance@ from another address proves Cloudflare routing works; missing Stripe mail is usually not DNS cache on Stripe’s side. Check, in order:
- Proton spam / quarantine / filters — automated mail from
stripe.comis often filtered when forwarded. - Wait + resend — Stripe dashboard → resend verification (can take several minutes).
- Cloudflare Email Routing → Activity — confirm Stripe’s message was received and forwarded (or rejected).
- Workaround: complete Stripe signup with the destination inbox directly (e.g.
umbraculum-dev@proton.me); after verification, change the Stripe account email tofinance@umbraculum.devin Stripe settings (or keep Proton for Stripe login and usefinance@only on Liberapay profile copy).
3.1 Liberapay — @Umbraculum
- Create a Liberapay account for the founding maintainer (GitHub OAuth uses your personal account; Liberapay does not attach a GitHub org as recipient).
- Public page
Umbraculumathttps://liberapay.com/Umbraculum/— a Liberapay Team is optional for solo maintainers; an individual account named after the project is acceptable at alpha (Teams). - Team / profile description (short):
- Funds AI inference, maintainer time, and infrastructure (e.g. community forum ~€4/mo bootstrap VPS-only → ~€10/mo when backup layers fully enabled).
- Environmental accounting: 1% of Stripe-processed payouts via Stripe Climate Commitments; 1 hectare of forest under active maintenance; local reforestation scaled to capacity — see §9.
- Does not buy votes, priority, or paywalled features — link to
/supportand §5.3. - Link https://github.com/umbraculum-dev and https://umbraculum.dev/support/ in prose (credibility; not a GitHub-org OAuth hook).
- Connect Stripe only as payout processor — account email
finance@umbraculum.devwhen forwarding is reliable (§3.0); link bank for payouts. - Confirm live URL matches
https://liberapay.com/Umbraculum/(adjust/supportif Liberapay assigns a different slug).
3.2 Buy Me a Coffee — Umbraculum
- Register Buy Me a Coffee page slug
Umbraculum(or nearest available; update links if taken). - Disable membership tiers and shop at alpha — one-time tips only to avoid Patreon-style tier optics (§6).
- Profile copy: same §5.3 disclaimer as Liberapay; “one-time contribution.” Mention §9 environmental accounting (Stripe Climate 1%, forest stewardship) in one line if space allows.
- Payout: Stripe when offered (same project identity as Liberapay); PayPal not required at alpha.
- Optional: embed button on
/support(link-out is enough at v1).
3.3 Wire /support
Update umbraculum-brochure public/support/index.html — both buttons live, placeholder paragraph removed.
3.4 Forum pin
In Community policy on forum.umbraculum.dev, pin a short Sponsorship channels (Phase 0) topic linking Liberapay, Buy Me a Coffee, in-kind §4, and escalation triggers §5.
4. In-kind sponsorship — especially “API / token” support
There is no Liberapay, Buy Me a Coffee, or generic OSS button that accepts API tokens or model credits. Payment platforms move cash. Compute sponsorship is always coordination, not a checkout flow.
4.1 What works (documented paths)
| Form | How it works | Typical sponsor |
|---|---|---|
| Cash → maintainer buys inference | Liberapay / Buy Me a Coffee; maintainer spends on Cursor/API bills | Individuals |
| Organizational billing | Sponsor org adds maintainer to Cursor Team, Anthropic/OpenAI org billing, or similar — sponsor pays vendor directly | Agencies, employers |
| Cloud credit programs | Maintainer applies to AWS/Azure/GCP OSS credit programs on behalf of the project; sponsor may help with application or customer reference | Vendors, cloud partners |
| Infrastructure in-kind | Sponsor pays hosting invoice or provides VPS — earmark “forum host” / “demo host” (~€48/year forum bootstrap VPS-only; ~€120/year public full-target figure). Entity-owned custody follows community vote (CORE-DEVELOPMENT-AND-COMMUNITY.md §4.6.7); migration is backup + restore + DNS, not VPS account transfer | Hosters, consultancies |
| Public coordination | Open a Help or Community policy forum topic: “In-kind compute offer — <vendor>” so the offer is visible (§5.3: no private channel for decisions; initial offer can be public) | Anyone |
4.2 What we do not accept
- Raw API keys, shared passwords, or “here is my Cursor token” in email, DM, or forum — security and ToS risk; refuse and point to organizational billing or cash.
- Gift-card codes for API vendors unless a documented exception exists — accounting and fraud surface.
- Earmarks that buy priority — a sponsor may say “for inference costs” in a message; that does not move their proposal up the vote queue (§5.3).
4.3 Copy for /support (in-kind)
Compute and API credits. Vendors do not provide a standard “donate tokens” button. If you want to sponsor AI inference or Cursor/API usage, either contribute cash (above) or contact us on the forum to arrange organizational billing or a cloud credit program application. We do not accept shared API keys.
5. Escalation — when the community votes on the next channel
Stay on Phase 0 until a Proposals forum topic passes (§4) to add or replace a channel. Any one trigger is enough to open that topic:
| Trigger | Likely options to vote on |
|---|---|
| Org sponsor needs VAT invoice / purchase order | Open Collective or formal legal entity + bank |
| Sustained volume — e.g. >€200/month equivalent (cash + documented in-kind) for 3 consecutive months | Add GitHub Sponsors for discoverability; and/or OC for transparency |
| Payout / split friction | Liberapay Team expansion vs OC |
| Accounting — personal tax handling no longer appropriate | Entity + OC or accountant-approved channel |
| Donor feedback — repeated “could not find one-time/recurring option” | UI/copy fix first; second platform only if needed |
Default if no trigger: keep Liberapay + Buy Me a Coffee.
Volume threshold (€200/month × 3 months) is v0.1 — calibrate at the §9 revisit (first six months after public alpha).
6. Public acknowledgement (§5.4)
- Flat list on
/support— alphabetical names or orgs only; no amounts, no tiers. - Opt-out: if a donor asks to stay anonymous, do not list them.
- Liberapay and Buy Me a Coffee do not publish donor names by default — listing is maintainer-curated from donors who consent (e.g. in donation message or follow-up forum post).
7. Fees (honest comparison)
| Channel | Platform fee | Processing (typical) | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liberapay | 0% | ~3% Stripe | Recurring |
| Buy Me a Coffee | ~5% | Stripe ~2.9% + fixed | One-time |
| GitHub Sponsors (deferred) | ~6% | included in platform cut | Dev discoverability — community vote |
| Open Collective (deferred) | ~10% | varies | Org invoices, public budget — community vote |
8. Flip-day checklist
- Liberapay Umbraculum live; Stripe connected; GitHub linked in profile copy — 2026-06-26 (
liberapay.com/Umbraculum/) - Buy Me a Coffee Umbraculum live; tiers/shop off — 2026-06-26 (
buymeacoffee.com/Umbraculum) -
/supportbuttons point to live URLs — 2026-06-26 (umbraculum.dev/support/; indexed since 2c ✅ 2026-06-27) - Forum Community policy pins: Phase 0 channels + §5 triggers — 2026-06-08 (
community-forum-runbook.md§7.5; forum live at forum.umbraculum.dev) -
PUBLIC-ALPHA-ANNOUNCEMENT.mdmentions/support - Stripe Climate Commitments at 1% on payout account (§9.2)
9. Environmental accounting — AI energy, Stripe Climate, forest stewardship
Umbraculum is human-directed and AI-orchestrated (MANIFESTO.md §1.2). That choice has a real energy cost — inference, CI, and contributor tooling consume electricity and upstream compute. We are not indifferent to that cost because the project also commits to empathy, sustainability, and honest accounting (MANIFESTO.md §2.1, §3.2).
This section is not a political manifesto. It records admiration for forests — North American landscapes and forest ecosystems worldwide — and a consequent attempt to offset some of what this work emits, without pretending the math is perfect.
Open discussion is welcome. If you have better numbers, local knowledge, or disagreement with how we allocate, say so on the forum — this topic stays on the public agenda.
9.1 What we worry about
- AI-assisted development and product AI both draw on energy-intensive compute. Building on AI does not erase that footprint; it raises the obligation to name it.
- Greenhouse gases and forest loss are connected stresses we take seriously as practitioners who spend our lives in front of machines — not as a badge, but as a worry we act on modestly.
9.2 Stripe Climate Commitments — 1% on processed payouts
On the Stripe account that receives Liberapay and Buy Me a Coffee payouts (finance@umbraculum.dev rail, §3.0), we enable Stripe Climate Commitments at 1% of Stripe-processed volume.
| Channel | Applies? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Liberapay (recurring) | Yes | Payouts via Stripe; Commitments apply to processed volume on that account |
| Buy Me a Coffee (one-time) | Yes | Same Stripe payout rail when used |
| In-kind / org billing | No automatic % | Sponsor pays vendor directly — no Stripe Climate hook on our side; discuss openly if sponsor wants parallel giving |
Stripe routes Climate Commitments toward permanent carbon removal projects in the Stripe Climate / Frontier portfolio — not a generic “green badge.” Details and dashboard reporting live in Stripe’s docs; we do not duplicate their project-selection mechanics here.
Honest limit: 1% of donation volume is small relative to total project energy use (maintainer inference bills, CI, hosting, contributors’ own machines). It is a committed floor, not a claim of carbon neutrality.
9.3 Forest stewardship — 1 hectare today; local reforestation as capacity allows
In parallel with Stripe Climate:
- We maintain one hectare of forest under active care today.
- Local reforestation — planting and tending near where maintainers work — will increase with our means (time, sponsorship, and land access). No fixed timeline; scale honestly or not at all.
We do not frame this as offset marketing for the software product. It is stewardship we chose because forests matter to us aesthetically and ecologically.
9.4 How this relates to sponsorship §5.3
Environmental giving does not buy votes, priority, private channels, or features — same §5.3 wall as every other sponsorship use. Sponsors may earmark “environment” in a message; that is information, not governance weight.
9.5 Maintainer checklist (Stripe Climate)
- Stripe Dashboard → Climate → Climate Commitments enabled at 1%
- Confirm Liberapay + Buy Me a Coffee payouts land on the same Stripe account
- Mention §9 briefly on
/supportand in Liberapay / Buy Me a Coffee profile copy (§3.1–§3.2) - Forum Community policy: welcome open threads on energy accounting and forest stewardship
10. Sign-off log
| Date | Maintainer | Liberapay | Buy Me a Coffee | /support | Forum pin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-26 | maintainer | ☑ | ☑ | ☑ | ☐ (tail — community-forum-runbook.md §6) |