A blog post from Software Freedom Conservancy. Blog post by Daniel Takamori. Please email any comments on this entry to <pono@sfconservancy.org>. We thank both donors who offered this historic $204,877 match & those who gave to help to exceed the challenge In late November, SFC, with the help of a group of generous individuals who pledged match gifts large and small, posted a huge challenge to our donors. We were so thankful for the donors who came together to offer others a match challenge of $204,877 — which was substantially larger than any of our match challenges in history. Donors heard our ask, and we were even more thankful of all the donors who responded. Toward the end, we were so overwhelmed by last minute response that we were tabulating updates by hand. We saw so many donors who had already given coming in for another $10, $50 or $100 to get us there. We made the match primarily because of the hundreds of small donors who came in with Sustainer amounts, and we thank those small donors so much for often doing a bit extra: so many of you hit the $512 and even the $1024 button instead of the minimum of $128. It means so much to us when we see a donor who gave $128 in 2023 double their donation for 2024 — you all made this match challenge succeed. We also so appreciate the donors who, despite experiencing financial challenges, gave smaller amounts when it was a stretch for them to give at all. Most surprising of all, an anonymous donor who in the past has made a very large donation around the time of FOSDEM came in early this year. That donation bursts us right through our status bar and puts us well over. We've raised over $475,000 this season, which is now reflected on our fundraiser status bar. (We're still tabulating and entering the paper checks and ACH/wire transactions that came during the final days of the fundraiser, so the number may soon increase even more!) We are truly humbled. Every year, our staff is working tirelessly through the holiday season to make sure we balance our work and fundraising. Every dollar you all give us is noticed and appreciated, and gets us there, step by step. SFC does receive some grants and corporate sponsorship for which we are also grateful, but the bulk of our funding comes from individual donors, like you. Fundraising is (sometimes annoyingly) mandatory work that as a small staff we must do in addition to our normal work. Nevertheless, it's a simple fact that the more you donate, the more program activity we can do. In essence, you make our important work for software freedom and rights.