In July, at the GNOME annual general meeting (AGM), held at GUADEC 2024, the message from the GNOME Foundation board was that all was well, financially speaking. Not great, but the foundation was on a break-even budget and expected to go into its next fiscal year with a similar budget and headcount. On October 7, however, the board announced that it had had to make some cuts, including reducing its staff by two people. This is not, however, strictly a GNOME problem: similar organizations, such as the Python Software Foundation (PSF), KDE e.V., and the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) are seeing declines in fundraising while also being affected by inflation.
In April, GNOME Foundation board president Robert McQueen wrote on his blog that the foundation had been operating at a deficit for more than three years. That was possible because the foundation had received "some substantial donations" in the years prior, but the organization had now used up the surplus. GNOME has a reserves policy that requires it to keep enough in reserve to maintain core operations, which meant "the Board can't approve any more deficit budgets — to keep spending at the same level we must increase our income".
GNOME has not, however, increased its income. In fact, the organization brought in less money than expected during the fiscal year that ended on September 30. According to the board update, the problem was twofold, a "very challenging fundraising environment for nonprofits, on top of internal challenges" that included the departure of executive director Holly Million after less than one year.