Support GRASS Development
GRASS solves geospatial problems other tools can’t. Whether you use it every day or once a year for a critical task, your work depends on it being maintained, reliable, and improving.
Sponsorship helps ensure a healthier ecosystem for everyone who develops and maintains GRASS. Pick a tier or discuss your options.
Why Sponsorship Is Needed
GRASS is a long-standing open-source geospatial engine with active development, deep scientific foundations, and a continuous stream of new tools and capabilities. However, it is currently developed and maintained by contributors working largely without dedicated funding.
Your sponsorship directly enables faster feature development, better documentation, reliable long-term maintenance, and coordinated progress on the GRASS roadmap.
Your support funds:
- Annual contributor meetings: Getting contributors together in person is the most effective way to move the project forward. These events cost $15,000–$30,000 each year and are the project’s single largest expense. They drive the development, bug fixing, and planning that keep GRASS reliable.
- Student grants: Funding for students to contribute code, fix bugs, write documentation, or create educational resources. Experienced contributors and their employers volunteer their time to mentor these students, deepening their engagement with the project and building the next generation of maintainers.
- Future goals: As sponsorship grows, we aim to fund dedicated developer time and project management to ensure the long-term sustainability of GRASS.
Without sustained funding, the burden on current developers grows, coordination suffers, and there are fewer paths for new contributors to grow into project maintainers. GRASS has sustained itself through decades of challenges, but without funding, development slows down and risk increases.
Sponsorship Tiers
Supporter: $2,500/year ($250/mo if billed monthly)
Five Supporter sponsors cut the amount that needs to be raised each year by half.
- Logo on grass.osgeo.org
- Logo on the contributor meeting page and in the meeting report
- Social media recognition (1×/year)
- News post announcement
Sponsor directly Request invoice
Partner: $10,000/year ($1,000/mo if billed monthly)
Two Partner sponsors fund most of the annual contributor meeting costs.
- Everything in Supporter, plus:
- Logo in the main GitHub repository README file
- Listed on the NumFOCUS website
- Mentioned in release announcements
- Social media recognition (4×/year)
- Press release announcement
- Participation in Project Steering Committee (PSC) meetings (details below)
Invoicing is available for both tiers. We are happy to work with your budget cycle.
Contribute Without a Tier
You can also contribute any amount to support GRASS through NumFOCUS. Three $500 contributions fund a typical student grant. We are grateful for every contribution.
Become a Sponsor
To start a sponsorship or discuss options, contact Vaclav Petras (wenzeslaus@gmail.com), GRASS PSC Member and Project Treasurer.
We will confirm your tier, collect logo details, and coordinate invoicing and payment through NumFOCUS. Custom arrangements are possible for organizations with larger commitments or specific goals.
Current Sponsors
We thank Bohannan Huston, Inc. for their continued sponsorship of GRASS since 2021.
The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) provides infrastructure for the project including hosting, documentation builds, and discussion platforms, and supports contributor travel and community events. FOSSGIS e.V. has contributed to the annual contributor meeting expenses.
Sponsorship Details
GRASS is a community-driven project hosted by the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) and fiscally sponsored by NumFOCUS, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Contributions may be tax-deductible. NumFOCUS accepts payments in multiple currencies.
GRASS is governed by an elected PSC. All funds are managed transparently by the PSC. See governance for details.
Partner sponsors are invited to participate in regular PSC meetings to share priorities and provide input on project direction. Input is welcomed and heard; it is not binding on the PSC’s decisions.