We are a start-up who makes extensive use of an open source library. This library is somewhat new, and is not yet established.<p>We would like to assist with the ongoing development of the project through both financial and engineering resources; we are unsure how to do so, given the lack of a formal organization.<p>We do not mind setting up a "non-profit" or other type of structure, but are unsure of how these legal entities look. Can someone suggest a good framework or a similar project we can look to for inspiration?
Can you elaborate on your post? It's currently a bit vague.<p>There are many examples of organizations created to support open source software: the DSF (<a href="https://www.djangoproject.com/foundation/" rel="nofollow">https://www.djangoproject.com/foundation/</a>), the ASF (<a href="https://www.apache.org/foundation/" rel="nofollow">https://www.apache.org/foundation/</a>), and the GNOME Foundation (<a href="http://www.gnome.org/foundation/" rel="nofollow">http://www.gnome.org/foundation/</a>) are a few prominent ones. Are you sure you need this level of formality at this point, though? This carries a certain amount of overhead, and if you mean 501(c)(3) when you say "non-profit", it's a long process that may not go well (<a href="http://blogs.gnome.org/jnelson/2014/06/30/the-new-501c3-and-the-future-of-free-software-in-the-united-states/" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.gnome.org/jnelson/2014/06/30/the-new-501c3-and-...</a>).<p>It sounds like you're talking about a relatively new project with a small number of contributors. Would it be possible instead to make an arrangement with the core developer(s) to support the project financially? You may be able to structure this as a normal contractor agreement or via services such as Gratipay (<a href="https://gratipay.com/" rel="nofollow">https://gratipay.com/</a>, formerly gittip) or BountySource (<a href="https://www.bountysource.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.bountysource.com/</a>). This would allow you to contribute while deferring the overhead of an organization until there are more people and resources involved.