Today, the Rust Foundation is thrilled to announce the Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund: a new initiative to provide consistent, transparent, and long term support for the developers who make the Rust programming language possible.

This announcement marks the beginning of the Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund — an initiative we’ll shape in close collaboration with the Rust Project Leadership Council and Project Directors to ensure funding decisions are made openly and with accountability. In the months ahead, we’ll define the fund’s structure, secure contributions, and work with the Rust Project and community to bring it to life. This work will build on lessons from earlier iterations of our grants and fellowships to create a lasting framework for supporting Rust’s maintainers.

About the Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund announcement, Nell Shamrell-Harrington (Rust Foundation Board Chair) said: 

“Any open source project – especially one as widely used as Rust – cannot evolve, remain secure, or function at the most basic level without supporting its maintainers. Maintainers do the vital work of pull request reviews (which can be very labor-intensive), upgrades, refactorings, and much more. This fund will ensure these maintainers have the support they need to continue this vital work.“

The Health & Future of Rust

Open source sustainability has long been a central theme in our work and in many recent conversations across the Rust community, from how we collectively support critical open-source infrastructure to how we empower the people behind it to thrive.

Sustainability challenges across open source have only intensified in 2025, leaving many Rust maintainers uncertain about how to continue their essential work. The Rust Foundation is excited to develop this new fund to directly address the critical needs of the people building Rust in response to this challenge. Over the past several months, through ongoing board discussions and input from the Leadership Council, this initiative has taken shape as a way to help maintainers continue their vital development and review work, and plan for the future.

Even as technology changes rapidly and new opportunities emerge, Rust remains a crucial tool for building performant, safe, and forward-looking software. Investing in the people who make that possible is essential to meeting the growing demand for what Rust enables. We see it as our responsibility to ensure Rust maintainers can work sustainably and, in the process, shed light on the impact of supporting the often unseen work that keeps the Project running.

Supporting the people behind Rust has never felt more urgent. The Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund is our commitment to act on that urgency transparently with ongoing Rust Project collaboration.

“We’re excited the Foundation and the Project have grown to be able to offer sustaining support to Rust maintainers directly. The more companies using Rust can contribute to the Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund, the more we can keep the language and tooling evolving for the benefit of everyone. The Project is looking forward to collaborating with the Rust Foundation on how to best align this fund to project maintainers’ needs.” 
– Carol Nichols on behalf of the Rust Project Directors

Approach

As the official steward of the Rust Programming Language, the Rust Foundation exists to ensure the health, stability, and growth of Rust – and to provide the financial and administrative infrastructure that keeps it thriving.

To deliver on that mission, the Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund will invest directly in the people and projects that keep Rust strong. Through it, we will:

• Provide reliable support for Rust’s maintainers and contributors.
• Collaborate with the Rust Project Leadership Council and Project teams to identify high-impact priorities and direct support toward maintainers working on them.
• Provide visibility into how funding is used to advance Rust.

This initiative reflects our commitment to Rust being shaped by its people, guided by open collaboration, and backed by a global network of contributors and partners. The Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund will operate within the governance framework shared between the Rust Project and the Rust Foundation, ensuring alignment and oversight at every level.

We recognize that other organizations are also working to fund maintainers, and we view this as a positive reflection of Rust’s growth and vibrancy. Sustaining open-source work is not a one-size-fits-all challenge. Finding the best ways to fund maintenance is complex and ever-evolving — it requires collaboration across many groups who care about Rust and open lines of communication, which we intend to build.

The Rust Foundation’s approach to this initiative will be guided by our structure: as a 501( C)(6) nonprofit, we operate under a mandate for transparency and accountability to the Rust Project, language community, and our members. That means we must develop this fund in coordination with the Rust Project’s priorities, ensuring shared governance and long-term viability.

What’s Next

The Rust Foundation will continue working to ensure that this initiative develops in a transparent, accountable, and impactful way. While we’re still in discussion about how to best align funding decisions with Rust Project priorities, the Foundation is keen to lean on the Leadership Council to evaluate the overall health of the Project and make recommendations on which maintainers to fund based on the identified needs.

Our goal is simple: to help the people building Rust continue their essential work with the support they deserve. That means creating the conditions for long term maintainer roles and ensuring continuity for those whose efforts keep the language stable and evolving. Through the Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund, we aim to address these needs directly.

Further details about funding processes, eligibility, and timelines will be shared as the work progresses.

Supporting This Work

If you or your organization shares this vision, we invite you to reach out to us at [email protected] to find out how you can support the Rust Foundation Maintainers Fund. We’re just getting started and look forward to keeping the community updated!