sponsoredissues.org is a platform that allows GitHub Sponsors donors to assign their donations to specific GitHub issues, in order to vote for which features and fixes get prioritized by the maintainer.

Unlike bounty platforms where money is held until work is complete, sponsoredissues.org works with GitHub Sponsors donations that have already been paid (unconditionally!) to the maintainer. Users can assign their already-donated amounts to specific GitHub issues on sponsoredissues.org, to indicate how they would like their donations to be used. The purpose of assigning funds to GitHub issues is only to provide user feedback to the maintainer, and it does not create any formal obligation for the maintainer to resolve the issues within any particular time frame.

Yes, the platform is free to use for both maintainers and users. If you want to support the site, or if you want vote for specific features/fixes, you can donate to me on GitHub Sponsors.

To get started as a maintainer:

1. Set up a GitHub Sponsors profile for your GitHub account.
2. Install the GitHub App for sponsoredissues.org.
3. Create a custom GitHub issue label called sponsoredissues.org, and add the label to the GitHub issues you want to appear on your sponsored issues page. Advice: Choose your sponsored issues wisely! In general, sponsored issues should be:
   • Technically feasible
   • Something you actually intend to do
   • Something that your users would understand and care about (e.g. a juicy new feature)
4. Check that the issues you labeled with sponsoredissues.org are correctly showing on your sponsored issues page. The URL for your sponsored issues page is https://sponsoredissues.org/$YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME (e.g. https://sponsoredissues.org/benvvalk).
5. Optional (but recommended): Let your users know that they can vote on issues if they sponsor you! Some suggestions:
   • Add a link to your sponsored issues page from your GitHub Sponsors profile. Example: My GitHub Sponsors page
   • Add a link to your sponsored issues page in the README.md for your repo. Example: My README.md for sponsoredissues.org.
   • Add your sponsor issues page as a "Custom" link in your .github/FUNDING.yml file. Example: My funding.yml for sponsoredissues.org

Only issues that you've explicitly tagged with the sponsoredissues.org label on GitHub will be listed on sponsoredissues.org. This helps ensure that your users can only fund issues that are technically feasible and align with your project goals.

You should think carefully about which issues you tag with sponsoredissues.org! If you make an implementation plan before you tag the issue with sponsoredissues.org, it will save both you and your users from unnecessary churn.

No. You maintain creative control of your project, because you decide which issues are "sponsorable", i.e. which issues have the sponsoredissues.org label on GitHub. You should only tag an issue if you think the requested feature/fix is reasonable and you want to do the work. See also: Which issues can be sponsored?

You receive any funds donated to you on GitHub Sponsors immediately and unconditionally, just as if you were not using sponsoredissues.org at all. sponsoredissues.org is just a bookkeeping mechanism that allows the users to indicate how they would like their already-paid donation(s) to be used. See also: How is this different from other issue bounty platforms?

No. All contributions on sponsoredissues.org are donations, not contracts or bounties. You have no formal obligation to resolve funded issues in any particular timeframe (or at all). The funding is only meant as user feedback, to help encourage and prioritize the work.

When you close an issue with the sponsoredissues.org label, that issue will no longer appear on your sponsored issues page, and any funds assigned to the issue will be considered "spent". In other words, users will no longer be able to reassign those funds to other issues.

You can re-open the issue on GitHub at any time, if you realize that the issue has not been properly resolved, and it will once again appear on your sponsored issues page.

Yes, closing an issue is an easily reversible operation. When you re-open a closed issue with the sponsoredissues.org label, it will once again reappear on your sponsored issues page, with the same amount of funding it had when it was closed. Users will once again be able to add or remove funds from the issue.

The sponsoredissues.org GitHub App continuously syncs GitHub issue data from github.com to sponsoredissues.org, such as issue open/closed states, issue creation/deletion events, and issue labeling/unlabeling.

The sponsoredissues.org GitHub App needs to be installed and active to properly sync GitHub issue data from github.com to sponsoredissues.org (e.g. issue open/closed states).

In general, it is a bad idea to uninstall or suspend the sponsoredissues-maintainer app on a repo where users are already funding one or more issues. If you do that, any funded issues from the repo will be put into a frozen state on your sponsored issues page, with the "Add or Remove Funds" button disabled. In addition, the issue states may get out-of-sync with GitHub (e.g. open/closed state). On the other hand, issues without any funds assigned will simply be removed from your sponsored issues page, since those can be easily restored if/when you reinstall the app.

Since the issue funding amounts are frozen when you uninstall/suspend the app, you can easily restore the frozen issues by just reinstalling/unsuspending the app on the repo in question. If you actually want to remove the issues from your sponsored issues page, you should do it by closing the issue(s) on GitHub instead.

In general, you should not remove the sponsoredissues.org label from a GitHub issue once it has received funding on your sponsored issues page. If you do that, the issue will be put into a frozen state, with the "Add or Remove Funds" disabled. Removing the label from an issue without funding is not a problem, because the issue will simply be removed from your sponsored issues page.

Since existing issue funding amounts are frozen when you remove the sponsoredissues.org label, you can easily restore the state of the issue by re-adding the label on GitHub. If you actually want to remove issue from your sponsored issues page, you should close the issue on GitHub instead.

Firstly, please note that we are talking about deleting an issue on GitHub here, which is different from closing an issue. Deleting an issue on GitHub is a destructive and irreversible operation that is not commonly used.

In general, it is a bad idea to delete an issue on GitHub if it already has funding on your sponsored issues page. If you do that, the issue will disappear from your sponsored issues page, and any funds that users assigned to the issue will be returned to them as "remaining" funds. That could easily confuse or anger your users, especially if they were emotionally/financially invested in the issue.

If you want to remove an issue from your sponsored issues page, in most cases it is better to just close the issue on GitHub. That makes it possible to re-open the issue later if you change your mind.

To vote for issues:

1. Make a donation to the maintainer on their GitHub Sponsors page (e.g. https://github.com/sponsors/benvvalk). You may choose a one time donation or a monthly subscription (both options work with sponsoredissues.org).
2. Sign in to sponsoredissues.org with your GitHub account.
3. Navigate to the sponsored issues page for the maintainer (e.g. https://sponsoredissues.org/benvvalk).
4. Allocate portions of your GitHub Sponsors donation to specific issues, using the "Add or Remove Funds" button next to the individual issues.

A maintainer's sponsored issues listing is sorted and ranked by donation total, to help the maintainers see which issues have the most community support.

Yes, you will need a GitHub account in order to use sponsoredissues.org. You need to make your donation payment on the maintainer's GitHub Sponsors page (e.g. https://github.com/sponsors/benvvalk). After you've made your donation, you can assign your donation amount to specific GitHub issue(s) by visiting the maintainer's sponsored issues page (e.g. https://sponsoredissues.org/benvvalk) and "Signing in with GitHub" in the top right corner. You need to "Sign in with GitHub" on sponsoredissues.org so that the website can see the exact amount that you've donated.

Not every GitHub issue is automatically "sponsorable". You will need to ask the maintainer to make the issue sponsorable by adding the sponsoredissues.org label on GitHub. This helps ensure that the requested feature/fix is technically feasible, and aligns with the maintainer's goals for the project.

Sorry, no. GitHub Sponsors handles the payment processing, and they have a "no refunds" policy. However, note that you can change the amount you have assigned to an GitHub issue at any time, using the "Add or Remove Funds" button, as long as the issue remains open. Once the issue is closed by the maintainer, all funding amounts for the issue are locked and the money is considered to be "spent".

Yes! You can reallocate your GitHub Sponsors donation among different issues at any time, as long as the issues are still open. Simply visit the maintainer's sponsored issues page (e.g. https://sponsoredissues.org/benvvalk) and adjust your allocations using the "Add or Remove Funds" button next to each issue.

The platform uses GitHub's API to verify active sponsorships and donation amounts. When you sign in with GitHub, sponsoredissues.org can check which maintainers you're sponsoring and for how much, ensuring you can only allocate donations you've actually made.

When the maintainer closes an issue on GitHub, the funds allocated to the issue are locked, and donors can no longer adjust the amounts they have assigned to that issue. In other words, any funds assigned to the issue are considered to be "spent".

Yes! The code for sponsoredissues.org is open source, and is published on GitHub with an Affero GPL 3.0 license: https://github.com/benvvalk/sponsoredissues.org.