I have many thoughts on this. As a lead maintainer of a project that has many contributors receiving grants, I take this responsibility extremely seriously. Every grant is a huge amount of trust that these organizations put on our project and I see my primary role as the mediator of that trust. I have seen many contributors come and go. Some have managed to get grants without producing anything worthwhile after years of larping on a side project that has almost zero impact. Others have produced immense value, without any grant at all. This has multiple risks and negative consequences: - Trust: We as a project risk losing the trust of organizations that want to support us. I regard every grantee as a potential liability. If you mess up, we as a project suffer more from it than you do. We might be better off without your minimal contributions. - Internal conflicts: People in the team know exactly who produces value and who pretends to be busy with pet projects. Seeing someone get a big grant for a worthless hobby project, or just producing a fraction of the output than someone else, hurts internal harmony. We have a high bar for excellence. Either you give your best, or you have to go somewhere else. - Stasis: Grants can feel like "easy money". Some people just kick back and enjoy, work 2 days a week for a full time salary someone else would kill for. This is deeply unfair and hurts the project, since there might be other folks that could've done a much better job if they received your grant. Open source work on the internet is a global market. There could be way more talented, more ambitious, more motivated people out there who would do a better job. If you work for in the industry, that company will have to constantly evaluate whether its worth keeping you whether it'd be better to replace you with a more productive developer. In most of the grant ecosystem, there is hardly any feedback between the grant renewal periods. This is why I take my job extremely seriously. I value the trust of the organizations who support Cashu more than anything else. My promise to them that my highest objective is to make sure their resources and their trust are used in the best possible way. This is good for us as a project, and good for the funding organizations as well. It is also good for the grantees, even if it sometimes feels harsh. If you get used to being a lazy dev with easy grant money, your career will be over as soon as you lose that privilege. There is no place for slackers in our team. We have no time for lazy people working on pet rock projects. If you don't show up every day, work at least as much as someone with a comparable salary in the industry, I will go back to the org that funds you and let them know about it. My team knows this. Our funders know this. Work hard or go find a different job.