Thunderbird donations

I used to be an Apple user, and I liked Apple's mail client.

I also work for a company that standardized on Outlook. Over the years, I came to like Outlook just fine.

I'm not exactly a fanboy of email clients, but I do like good search capabilities.

Now that I've moved to Windows, I needed to choose an email client. Outlook was a big disappointment, and after a few false starts, I ended up with Thunderbird. I have complaints, but it's good enough. So I decided to donate to the project.

And here's where it got interesting.

Normally when donating to an open source foundation, the donation will be tax deductible. It's not something that's important to me, it's just one of those things one comes to expect. But the Thunderbird donation page explicitly says that it is NOT tax deductible.

Hmm ... certainly not a deal-breaker, but it is odd. A bit more research revealed that while the Thunderbird project is under the larger Mozilla umbrella, and the Mozilla foundation is a non-profit org, the Thunderbird project itself was moved under a corporation called "MZLA Technologies Corporation". It is for-profit corp, wholly owned by the Mozilla Foundation.

I asked Claude.ai why they might have done this, and here's Claude's answer:

Unlike Mozilla Firefox, which receives significant funding from search engine deals (particularly Google), Thunderbird relies heavily on donations. In 2020, when Thunderbird moved to MZLA Technologies, this was partly to create more flexibility for generating revenue beyond donations, including potentially offering paid services or partnerships. ... Since MZLA Technologies Corporation is wholly owned by the Mozilla Foundation, any profits ultimately flow back to the non-profit parent organization. ... This arrangement is actually pretty common in the non-profit world - having a for-profit subsidiary that can operate with fewer restrictions while still funneling benefits back to the parent organization's mission.

So there's no problem here. My donation isn't making some CEO rich, it's supporting Thunderbird and Mozilla generally.

So why am I posting this?

Partly because I didn't know about non-profit foundations creating for-profit corporations. I found that interesting. But also because there's a little bit of a language issue here.

"Donation"

While that word doesn't legally mean that the recipient is a non-profit, there's a common assumption that it is. So I went on a bit of a roller coaster:

1. This donation supports a non-profit.

2. Oops, not true. This donation supports a for-profit corporation.

3. Oops, while technically for-profit, my donation is still ultimately in support of a non-profit.

Most of this is not made clear in Thunderbird's donation FAQ.

Here's another gem from the FAQ:

Q: How will my gift be used?

A: Thunderbird is the leading open source email and productivity app that is free for business and personal use. Your gift helps ensure it stays that way, and supports ongoing development.

How's that for a corporate-ese non-answer?

Ugh. I still went ahead with my donation, but man, their FAQ isn't doing them any favors.