Open source X rival Mastodon begins raising funds with new in-app donation feature

Mastodon, the open-source alternative to X and Threads, is set to test a new fundraising initiative through in-app donations. Announced on Wednesday, the organization will launch a campaign featuring donation banners within its Android and iOS applications. Initially, these banners will be visible only to users on its own servers, Mastodon.social and Mastodon.online. The banners are designed to be easily dismissible and will only appear to users whose accounts have been active for at least four weeks. Mastodon assures users that they won’t be inundated with donation requests. This approach has proven effective for other nonprofit organizations, such as the Wikimedia Foundation, which generates a significant portion of its revenue from individual donations, including those made via pop-up banners on Wikipedia. Despite its smaller user base, with 8.1 million registered accounts and fewer than 1 million monthly active users, Mastodon hopes these banners will motivate users to contribute more easily. The organization plans to expand this initiative to its web platform in the future, potentially extending it to all Mastodon instances. This would enable individual server administrators to receive direct support from their users, helping to sustain their operations. Operating as an open and decentralized social media platform, Mastodon faces unique challenges in securing financial support. Unlike Meta and X, which benefit from advertising revenue, Mastodon has traditionally relied on user donations via Patreon and has received some support from open-source funds and foundations. In 2023, Mastodon raised €545,000 in donations, marking a 65% increase from the previous year. However, its Patreon donor count saw a decline of nearly 23%, dropping to 7,400. This decrease in patrons may have prompted Mastodon to explore more proactive fundraising strategies, particularly in light of increasing competition from Meta and emerging players like the venture-backed startup Bluesky. In a blog post, Mastodon acknowledged the complexities involved in fundraising, stating, “We’d like to figure out how to do this well, together with the community. This is not a corporate fundraising campaign: it’s an effort to secure the future of a more ethical and independent social web.”