In my previous post, I talked about lowering the barriers for contributors. So far the feedback has been pretty inspiring. In this blog post I want to talk about another way of contributing back to the project, and that is through donations. At Joomla! Day events, I am often asked about donations. People want to know how they can donate, how much annual donations are given, and what the project does with the donations. That's an easy question; the core team members get paid from all the donations...

Of course I am kidding. If you take a look at the amount of money donated, and the number of core team/OSM members we could surely not have a decent living .

Most people are surprised to learn that donations are so small. The total amount of donations over the past 12 months was around $13.500. These donations come from community members who build Joomla! Web sites and use the donations link. The project also receives donations from companies like PackT, GoDaddy, and Google. Such corporate contributions come from the Google Summer of Code program, the generosity of a Web host, and royalties shared from Joomla! book sales.

It is of interest where donations come from. The top six countries are presented in this graph, and we see that the United States and The Netherlands are by far the top donating countries. In fact, these two countries are responsible for a total of 65% of all donations we receive!

When we focus on these two countries, we see a difference in the total amount per contribution, and a clear difference in the frequency of the donations. The US had 79 donations, and the Dutch contributers only had 12. In the Netherlands, a company called Byte is sharing a percentage of their revenue they make of Joomla! back to the project, every donation is around $350. On average, the amount per donation is around $55 in the US. This is more than twice as high as the $25 donation, world-wide.

This year we see a similar pattern in the donations, but we see a noteworthy difference. Norway has entered the top-five in 2008. This is due to a donation of the Norwegian Joomla! Day of around $2.500 which is a really great gesture from a local community.

So, how do you help Joomla! with your donations? Your donations help support Joomla! Days, developer conferences, presentation materials, infrastructure and travel expenses, as well as other expenses that come up to develop and promote the project. As the project grows, it requires more money. Looking at the Joomla! Days (which we try to support with a small amount of money) the number has increased impressively. With this growth the need for more money is simply a logical conclusion.

Please read the "Donate to Joomla!" page on www.joomla.org and consider contributing to Joomla!, too. Thanks to each of you who have given financially to this project.