As alluded to in the latest newsletter, today we are kicking off OpenHatch’s end-of-year fundraising drive to continue making free, open source software communities more vibrant, friendly, and diverse. You can help!

This year, your donation will primarily support OpenHatch’s Open Source Comes to Campus program. OpenHatch expanded the Open Source Comes to Campus program and refined its curriculum heavily in 2013, running workshops on 13 different campuses–more than all previous years combined!

Open Source Comes to Campus is a series of workshops held on college campuses for introducing students to free software ideals, concepts, and tools, and walking them through making their first contributions to a free software project of their choice. For each event, we bring local free software project leaders to campus to help students get started in their project and meet real people who improve free software for work and for fun.

“Today has been very empowering for me regarding my computer and the ways I can manipulate it.”
— Attendee at Harvard’s Open Source Comes to Campus event

On our donation drive page, you can read more about what OpenHatch accomplished this year and our plan for next year!

For the 2014 fundraising drive, we have a variety of donation tiers, with corresponding thank-you gifts at each tier:

• Fan: ≥ $5/month or $20: Stickers and our sincere thanks!
• Supporter: ≥ $10/month or $150: Thanks, stickers, and an OpenHatch t-shirt!
• Aficionado: ≥ $20/month or $300: All of the above, plus an original, custom sketch of Sufjan the baby penguin!
• Impresario: ≥ $60/month or $1000: All of the above, and an OpenHatch soccer-style knit scarf!
• Patron: ≥ $120/month or $2000: All of the above, plus we will send you a delicious pie.

Large or small, monthly or lump-sum, we at OpenHatch value everyone’s contributions. Donations from individuals and corporations who believe in OpenHatch’s mission are the only way that our work gets funded, so this end-of-year fundraising drive is incredibly important. I hope you will join me in donating this year!