Integrate a "Fund Request" / "Budget Manager" into Project
Problem to solve
The problem I (and we) always hate talking about: the money factor. I have an open source project in its infancy (v0.0.1), but I require engineering resources to help turn it into something valuable for the community. I love the idea of opencollective, but I would love it even more if opencollective (hint hint..it's open source) were integrated right into my project so it's clearly visible and transparent to those visiting the project.
Having a funding request feature integrated right into the home of where software lives seems to make the most sense to me. I need to be transparent with how much money my project needs, as well as explain to potential contributors what is in it for them. The whole point of open-source software is to get people involved, but sometimes people who are very bright may also be very broke...I don't want to exclude these people if they can help contribute...
Currently crowdfunding platforms take everyone away from where the source code lives, and different campaigns don't always make it so obvious as to what is fair for: 1) the backers (i.e., why do I have to pay this campaign $200/month when the other one in the list is $100 / month?), and 2) the contributors (i.e., "if I spend 40 hrs on this issue, I may get paid? I may not get paid?"). I.e., what's worth more: the time spent on fixing a bug or actually fixing the bug? Most would probably say the latter, but at the same time, people have to eat and live so they can be alive to apply their efforts...perhaps project maintainers can be the judge of their fairness criteria, perhaps allowing beginners in through a "trial phase" where the beginners still get something; with practice and persistence, those beginners become the future experts.
Lastly, when people contribute to an open-source project, it is my understanding that they would like 100% of the money to go towards the project (and not have any of it, even if it's 5%, get siphoned off by the platform the campaign is running on). On a platform like gitlab, you wouldn't need to siphon off any funds...if more projects get funded here, it would be more likely that those projects would be using your premium services (CI/CD stuff, etc), and that would probably be better for the project in the long run. It is the responsibility of the project campaign to understand their funding requests and expenses (including credit card transaction fees), not the platform's.
Intended users
Ultimately, it will be EVERYONE that works on open source projects in gitlab, including you. Even you guys had to go to crunchbase when you probably could have done all your fund raising right on your own project page. This is because your project page has the viewers and the contributors. Plus, if you put the crowdfunding on your page, you'd give people the confidence that you have the confidence in yourselves to do well!
Further details
This screenshot suggests an entry-point:
See how it's ubiquitous? It's right there where the project is. If enough initial interest is expressed in this feature, I'd be happy to draw up other suggested pages.
Proposal
I think initially, it may be easiest to tie the funding to a project rather than a group or an individual, but I could be wrong. Yes, individuals require funds, but having the funding request be part of the project may help with: 1) improving the visibility of the fund request, 2) connecting with viewers what it takes to get the project done and how quickly; i.e., project could say, "features A, B, and C can be done for free because they're easy to implement, but features D, E, and F are complex, and require [x] funds to implement. Community votes on what features to implement, contributors/backers may get a bigger say in what features get implemented"
Many things could be similar to what opencollective does, to make it easier for potential backers who have become accustomed to a certain way of navigating crowdfunding sites. Clicking on the suggested "Funds & Budget" would take the user to the dashboard of everything money-related. Top of the dashboard would show the funding goal (for the year) and the progress. Right below it would be the link to the CONTRIBUTING.md which would also suggest how contributors should submit invoices for their work (and clearly state how they may get their expense report rejected). Scrolling down the page, users would see clearly expenses on the left and contributions on the right, just like opencollective.
Permissions and Security
The actions would require payment processing by Paypal or Stripe (or [your favorite service]), so the feature request would require access to those APIs.
Documentation
What does success look like, and how can we measure that?
I personally think success is measured by the increase in contributions made to the project more than the dollars and cents. Dollars and cents enable the contributions to happen, even though it's that hairy subject we hate dealing with. I would look at burn rate of issues per quarter and measure visitor traffic to the project pages.
Internally, gitlab would hope to see an increase of premium subscribers, because with more users coming to projects on gitlab, and with extended project features become the new normal, it's inevitable that developers will require those premium services.