Ariel Manzur is the co-founder of Godot. He is also the founder of Lone Wolf Technology, and co-founder CTO of Ramatak Inc.
The Godot Foundation
The Godot Foundation is a Dutch non-profit organization registered as "Stichting Godot" that financially supports the Godot Project, an open source game engine. The Foundation was formed on August 23rd, 2022 to administer charitable contributions that are made to the Godot Engine.
The Godot Foundation uses charitable contributions on behalf of the Godot Project, in particular for:
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Hiring developers to work part-time or full-time on Godot Engine, and related projects
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Hiring artists to create high quality demo artwork under a permissive license
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Purchasing hardware required to develop Godot and other foundation projects
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Paying for hosting of some web services
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Covering travel costs to some important industry events (e.g. GDC, Gamescom)
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Producing merchandise for events (T-shirts, banners, stickers, etc.)
Our Mission
The mission of the Godot Foundation is to financially support the growth, initiatives and activities of the Godot Engine project, an open-source project that provides a free suite of tools and educational materials around the Godot Engine.
The Godot Foundation strives to help the Godot Engine continue to break down barriers to video game development and make it possible for everyone to create high quality video games, regardless of who they are and where they are located.
The Godot Foundation will ensure that the Godot Engine and the other projects it fosters are, and will stay, free and open source.
FAQ
How to Donate
Currently, the best way to support the Godot Project is donating via the Godot Development Fund. If you want to make a one-time donation you can find more details at the Godot's Donate page.
In addition to monetary contributions, it is also possible to support the Foundation in other ways such as the
contribution of technology.
Please contact us at [email protected] to discuss other
ways to support the Foundation in more detail.
Leadership
The Godot Foundation is led by the Board of Directors (formerly the Project Leadership Committee), and the Executive Director.
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Ariel Manzur
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Bastiaan Olij
Bastiaan Olij has been developing graphics software since his teens. After a detour in business software he got involved with Godot when he started creating Virtual Reality projects in his spare time and decided to take on the challenge of adding VR support to the Godot engine. He now works full time on the Godot engine both as it's XR lead and contributing to the rendering engine.
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Clay John Secretary
Clay John is a member of Godot's rendering team. In 2017 he started contributing first to Godot's documentation, then later to the engine itself. Currently he is employed by W4 Games to work on Godot full time.
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Emilio Coppola Executive Director
Emilio Coppola leads the Godot Foundation as its Executive Director, guiding the growth of the free, open-source Godot game engine. He started out making games and teaching others how to use Godot. With his background in web development and startups, Emilio now oversees the Foundation's work. He manages funding, allocates resources, and helps Godot become a top choice for game creators.
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George Marques
George Marques is a contributor to the Godot Engine since 2015 and member of the PLC since 2017. Currently he is working full-time for the project and is responsible for the development of the GDScript language, while also helping in other areas such as GDExtension.
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HP van Braam Treasurer
HP van Braam is a seasoned member of the Godot community and a passionate advocate for open-source game development. Since 2017, HP has been actively contributing to the Godot project, eventually founding two successful Godot-related businesses, Prehensile Tales b.v and Ramatak Inc. In addition to their professional work, HP is also a member of the Godot Code of Conduct team and strongly believes in the importance of Godot in education, as many people start learning to program through game development.
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Juan Linietsky
Juan is one of the co-creators of Godot and currently serves as its Technical Lead. Along with Ariel Manzur, he was instrumental in the development of Godot and continues to oversee its technical direction. In addition, Juan is a co-founder of W4 Games, where he is currently the CEO.
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Julian Murgia Chairperson
Julian Murgia started using Godot in 2015, first as a user, then as a small contributor to code and documentation. He was historically part of most real-world events organization around Godot Engine in Europe. As a passionate lover of both free and open-source software and game making, his personal involvment into Godot Engine PLC has never lowered ever since and carries on to Godot Foundation, with the hope to continue the engine's growth and adoption throughout the world of game development.
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Rémi Verschelde
Rémi Verschelde is a long-time free and open source software advocate, who came to the Godot project in 2015 with experience as a maintainer for the Mageia Linux distribution, and various open source games. He helped organize the contribution infrastructure and workflow (issue triage, PR review, release management, documentation, communication, etc.). Since 2018, he works full time as Project Manager & Maintainer of the Godot project. He is now also Co-Founder & COO of W4 Games, a company which develops products and services to strengthen the Godot ecosystem.
New Beginnings
Before the Godot Foundation was created, funding for the Godot project was managed by Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC). If you want to learn more about the SFC you can visit their website.
Policies and Procedures
The Foundation's policies and procedures are designed to ensure that all financial contributions are used in a transparent and accountable manner to support the Godot Project. View them here:
Annual Reports
The Annual Reports section of the website will contain reports that summarize the project's growth, achievements, milestones, and vision for the year. These reports will provide valuable insights into the project's progress and help to ensure that the project remains on track.
Coming in 2024...
Financial Statements
The Financial reports contain the information on the organization's income and expenses, as well as its assets and liabilities. This information is important for understanding the financial health of the Godot Project and the Godot Foundation and it will show how we use all donations to support the project.
Contact
If you would like to get in touch with the Godot Foundation, you can send us an email at [email protected].