Rfmf rust foundation maintainer fund

• Feature Name: rust_foundation_maintainer_fund
• Start Date: 2026-02-23
• RFC PR: rust-lang/rfcs#3931

§ Summary

This RFC defines the relationship between the Rust Foundation Maintainer Fund (RFMF) and the open-source Rust project. The RFMF is a dedicated fund used to support Rust maintenance: open-ended, multiplicative work that improves Rust and its codebase.

The Leadership Council has a Project Priorities budget, which is used to fund various initiatives, such as travel grants or program management. RFMF funds will be directed to this budget, but they will be dedicated to activities that direct funding to individual maintainers. This includes the existing program management program and would include the proposed Project Grants Program (RFC 3919), which provides modest stipends to recognize and support existing contributors. It will also include a third program, the Maintainer in Residence (MiR) program, proposed by this RFC.

The Maintainer in Residence program is dedicated to hiring long-term maintainers and funding their maintenance work in full. Maintainers' in Residence time is split between priorities guided by the teams they are supporting and priorities of their own choosing within the project.

Selecting Maintainers in Residence is a collaboration between the Foundation and a "Funding team" whose members are appointed by the Leadership Council or directly by the top-level teams. This Funding team will weigh the set of applications against the project's needs and priorities.

The Funding team is additionally charged with ensuring the program's overall success. When sponsors contribute undirected funding, they are investing in the Rust project as a whole — and the project should meet them in good faith. Project teams receiving support from the program are expected to help the Funding team manage sponsor relations, e.g., by meeting with sponsors or providing other reasonable sponsor benefits.

This RFC was jointly written by the RFMF Design Committee.

§ Motivation

The Rust Foundation is establishing a Maintainer Fund to collect sponsorships and provide long-term funding for Rust maintenance. Funds raised through the RFMF are dedicated to funding Rust maintainers under the supervision of the Leadership Council. The Leadership Council commissioned this RFC to recommend how those funds should be used.

We recommend that the funds be directed into the Project Priorities budget with the restriction that they be used only for programs that fund Rust maintainers to do maintenance work (which includes project management). Dedicating the funds helps ensure that the "sales pitch" is clear: donations given to the RFMF will go directly into a maintainer's pocket.

We further recommend that the Leadership Council create a "Maintainer in Residence" program to augment the existing project management program and the grants program proposed in RFC 3919. Maintainers in Residence are maintainers who are paid to work on a full-time or substantial part-time basis to maintain some part of the project.

Long-term maintenance is the biggest gap we found

In preparing this recommendation, we interviewed team leads across the Project. The message was clear: "what's needed is people with the focus to drive longer-scale projects." Volunteer maintenance can keep the lights on, but larger-scale work stalls because nobody has the sustained focus to push it through. As one (volunteer) team lead said, "All the time that reviewers have goes into reviewing, triaging, and so on, and then the interesting longer-term projects just fall under the table."

The rust-analyzer and Clippy experiences show what funded presence makes possible, and what happens when it disappears:

• When a funded reviewer was working on r-a, the PR backlog stayed around 10. After that person changed jobs, it climbed to over 110: "solving the review problem definitely requires money I think, there's no big question there."
• Short-term grants help but aren't enough. The Clippy team received Foundation grants that let "one person work almost full time on Clippy, but it was only for 6 months — it was hard to make long-term plans."

The problems teams describe require sustained, long-term presence.

Sponsors come in many shapes and sizes

We expect three kinds of support.

First, small-dollar donations from individuals and organizations that value Rust and want to support its long-term health without any particular expectations. The Foundation will help get the word out via funding drives and PR campaigns.

Second, when the Foundation takes in directed funding towards a particular goal, best practice will be to direct a percentage of that work into the RFMF, providing another revenue stream for maintenance work. (See the Future Possibilities section for more discussion in this direction.)

The third category is companies that employ developers or contributors working full-time to improve Rust. These companies are invested in Rust development, but their contributors' work still needs to be reviewed and landed by experienced maintainers. These companies may also need help resolving upstream bugs or limitations that are being hit internally.

Larger sponsors want predictability; all sponsors need to show impact

Sponsoring the maintainer fund is a way for companies to ensure the maintenance layer their contributors depend on stays healthy. An alternative is for the company to hire internal staff to do that role, but beyond being more expensive, experience has shown that "in house" maintainer roles at companies are difficult to sustain. Maintenance activities don't advance any single company's goals, so they're hard to justify in a performance review and vulnerable to restructuring when priorities shift.

For the fund to be sustainable, sponsors also need to be able to report the impact of their contributions. This means the project needs to treat demonstrating impact as a whole-project responsibility, not something that falls on Maintainers in Residence alone. See the sponsor benefits section for concrete details on what we envision.

The Project has visibility into needs that aren't always apparent from the outside

The fund is structured so that, by default, the Rust project, rather than the sponsors themselves, selects which maintainers to hire and which areas they should focus on. This allows us to aggregate smaller donations and put them to good use. It also means that less visible areas of the project, such as moderation or infrastructure, will be easier to support, as project members are aware of those needs.

But some sponsors will want to fund maintenance in particular areas, and that's ok too

Although the default is for the project to pick the area of focus for a MiR, we do allow the Funding team the latitude to offer involvement in area selection as a sponsor benefit at higher tiers. The intention is to permit a company that has a strong need on a particular area to fund a maintainer in that area, if they are willing.

§ Guide-level explanation

The RFMF collects sponsorships from companies and individuals. Funds support project grants, project management, and the Maintainer in Residence program. Maintainers in Residence are experienced, self-directed maintainers who do the work that keeps Rust healthy. They participate in team discussions, review PRs, mentor newcomers, and work on what the team needs.

Design axioms

Not one size fits all

Maintainers have a wide variety of needs and no one program will work for everyone. We allow RFMF funds to be used for any kind of program that directly pays maintainers for maintenance work (e.g., project grants from RFC 3919, the MiR program defined in this RFC, the LC's project management program, or other future programs that may be added).

The MiR is a collaboration between the Project and the Foundation

Neither the Foundation nor the Project can operate the MiR program on their own. The Foundation has a bank account, legal entity, and operational capacity; the Project has knowledge of team health and needs. The Foundation is the incoming channel by which most sponsors arrive; the Project governs the codebase that sponsors want to support. This RFC proposes that both project members (the Funding team) and Foundation staff jointly make major decisions. This is a partnership, not a handoff.

The Funding team owns the RFMF program's success, but they can't do it alone

Together with Foundation staff, the Funding team owns sponsor relations and the success of the RFMF program. As the team that selects maintainers and understands project needs, they're best positioned to communicate with sponsors about outcomes and priorities. However, they need support from the broader project, particularly those areas benefiting from a MiR.

Maintainers are team members

Maintainer in Residence candidates must be established members of the Rust Project who either are already members of the relevant team(s) or have been approved by the team(s) to become a member upon starting their MiR role. They need the permissions required for the work — reviewing PRs, championing goals, and performing actions limited to official team members. This is a hard requirement, not just an expectation.

For candidates who are not yet members of the target team, the team must confirm they are willing to add the candidate as a member. In cases where a team is defunct, the parent team(s) can invite the candidate to join and help revive the team.

Funded maintainers are not a separate class of contributor — they're project members who can now commit sustained time to team responsibilities.

Sponsor benefits

RFMF sponsors typically contribute to a general fund and don't direct where the money goes or who gets hired. Every contribution helps fund the sustained maintenance that keeps Rust healthy. All sponsors receive public recognition and visibility into how funds are being used through regular public reports.

To encourage larger contributions or year-over-year commitment, the Funding team can also establish sponsorship tiers where sponsors receive particular benefits.

Possible benefits associated with higher tiers

This RFC does not specify the precise tiers or benefits associated with those tiers. Instead, we give examples of the kinds of benefits we anticipate. The Funding team is free to choose these or other benefits that are similar in kind. A good rule of thumb is "could the company simply hire a person to do this, presuming they could find someone with the requisite team membership?" -- if so, it's a reasonable benefit to offer.

• Sponsor meetings. The Foundation builds a community of sponsoring organizations that meets with project leadership (Leadership Council, team leads) and Maintainers in Residence a few times a year to discuss project direction, sponsor experiences, and pain points. Project leadership gains insight into the needs of major Rust users; sponsors get visibility into the roadmap and the opportunity to hear from other Rust-adopting companies. The frequency of such meetings may depend on the level of sponsorship.
• Impact reporting. Regular reports on what funded maintainers are working on, progress on Project Goals, and how the program is contributing to Rust's health. These reports are prepared with help from the program management team and made publicly available.
• Prioritized review and bug fixes. Sponsors can reach out to the Foundation or project contacts about PRs or bugs that need attention, up to a certain frequency that is dependent on funding tier. This provides the sponsor with a form of "insurance" that they will get help resolving priority issues they encounter with Rust; however, this prioritization should be limited to bug fixes or PR reviews, not to larger feature development, and is in no way a promise that a PR will be merged (simply reviewed).
• Prioritization for goal championing. Sponsors may suggest that teams use a MiR on that team as a champion for project goals important to them. Teams and their members are encouraged to consider these suggestions but they are not obligated to take them.
• Area preferences. If a sponsor or group of sponsors is willing to fund the entire cost of a MiR but only in a specific area, the Funding team could work with them to find a candidate for that particular area.
  • For example, if a sponsor would specifically like to fund a cargo or rustfmt maintainer, the Funding team could work with them to make that happen. The role would still be a MiR like any other, following the same processes.

What is not allowed as a benefit

What sponsors do not get: the ability to unilaterally direct a maintainer's work, pick who gets added to project teams, or otherwise bypass project processes.

Selection process is driven by a team within the project, supported by Foundation staff

When funding is available, the Funding team and Foundation put out an open call for applications. Where appropriate, the Funding team may also proactively reach out to potential applicants to encourage them to apply, if they may be a good fit for areas the project needs. The Funding team and Foundation staff review applications, consider the project's needs, and then the Foundation makes offers to the strongest candidates.

The Funding team owns the project's long-term success

The Funding team owns the program's overall success. They keep up with teams to understand where support is needed and how well the program is working; they can adjust aspects of the program to make it work better over time.

The Leadership Council as well as the teams benefitting from the work of Maintainers in Residence are expected to support the Funding teams' efforts (e.g., by meeting with sponsors upon request or otherwise helping out with the sponsor benefits described above).

What Maintainers in Residence do

Maintainers in Residence split their time between team priorities and individual priorities of their own choosing within their area of focus. The exact balance varies depending on the individual, their experience, and the needs of the team — the important thing is that both team-directed and self-directed work are expected. This is about "team-directed vs. self-directed," not "maintenance vs. features." The Python Software Foundation's experience after nearly five years confirms that focusing purely on team-directed needs and multiplicative maintenance can be very draining; giving time for self-directed projects "made all the difference" in satisfaction (see [Prior Art][prior-art]).

§ Reference-level explanation

The Funding team's day-to-day responsibilities

The Funding team's role is to keep a pulse on the project and work with the Foundation to select which maintainers to hire. Its core responsibilities are:

1. Staying in regular contact with teams — meeting regularly with team leads and members to understand their needs, health, and where support would have the most impact.
   • These meetings can be helpful for purposes other than hiring a MiR: the Funding team may be able to connect the team with Foundation resources to resolve a situation.
2. Working with the Foundation to select MiR candidates — when positions become available, evaluating applicants and selecting candidates who'll have the most overall impact based on project needs.
3. Collecting feedback on how well the program and the MiRs are working — as the team responsible for selecting which maintainers to hire, the Funding team is also the team responsible for fielding feedback on how well those decisions work out and making adjustments as needed.

The Foundation supports the Funding team with logistics. The Foundation issues contracts or manages employment.

To ensure the membership reflects the will and needs of the teams of the Project overall, new members will be appointed to the Funding team for fixed terms (e.g., one year at a time) which can be renewed. Either the council will make these appointments or the members will be directly appointed by the top-level teams. This will be decided when the council adopts the team charter.

Unresolved question: The Funding team may also take on the duties of the Grants team proposed in RFC 3919. See the Unresolved Questions section.

Funding team affiliation limits

Funding team members must not disproportionately come from any one company, legal entity, or closely related set of legal entities, to avoid impropriety or the appearance of impropriety. If the Funding team has 5 or fewer representatives, no more than 1 representative may have any given affiliation; if the Funding team has 6 or more representatives, no more than 2 representatives may have any given affiliation. (This affiliation limit comes from RFC 3392, and the Funding team charter should import the definition of affiliations and the processes around handling them from there. The Leadership Council may update this policy through its normal decision-making process.)

The Funding team owns the health of the RFMF program

The Funding team has ownership of the RFMF's long-term health. They need to be responsive to both project needs as well as demonstrating return on investment to sponsors.

Application and vetting process

The process of hiring a new Maintainer in Residence begins with an open call for applications. Putting out a broad call for applications helps to surface needs and candidates the Funding team might not have identified on its own.

Applicants do not have to be a member of a Rust team. However, to be accepted, the team must be willing to grant the person membership. Therefore, applicants should be people who are experienced contributors to the project and, ideally, either a member of the teams they expect to help as MiR or members of some other Rust team.

Applicants provide (1) their background and experience — both within the Rust project and professionally; (2) their availability (full-time, part-time, etc); and (3) a high-level description of the kind of work they would like to do. This description can be quite general (e.g., "maintain rustfmt") but could also be specific (e.g., "split project foo into multiple independent libraries bar and baz").

The Funding team prioritizes applications based on:

1. conversations with team leads and team members to assess what support is most urgently needed;
2. the applicant's history with the project;
3. any specific work that was proposed in the application;
4. the applicant's availability and whether it suffices for the tasks they expect to perform;
5. the results of interviews or conversations with the applicant; and
6. any information the moderation team chooses to share regarding the applicant's conduct.

The Funding team works with the Foundation to select from the applicant pool and to extend offers. The Funding team is looking for maintainers that have technical depth in the relevant area, community standing and trust within the Project, and sustained work orientation (a track record that suggests they'll thrive in a role focused on reviews, mentorship, unblocking, and the kind of long-term technical work that requires deep context).

Working arrangements should be substantial and stable

The precise term