No, that's not what was being said.
The options on the table are:
1. Pay the licencing fees for proprietary software that already does what you want it to do.
2. Sponsor development of an open-source project so that it will eventually do what you want it to do.
The argument being made is that, in the case of KiCad and this particular institution, option 1 was seen to be cheaper than option 2. In other words, it was deemed to be cheaper to pay the licence costs for the proprietary solution than it would be to pay a developer to make KiCad fit in with what they wanted.
it sounds like they'd be happy donating some amount comparable to the cost of current tools if the donations would result in the project being made usable for them.
it's not about it making a difference or not to the project, it's about it resulting in a sufficiently improved tool that they can use and get some ROI on
Solution is dominant assurance contracts, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assurance_contract#Dominant_as...
I’m not sure I follow. Are you saying you chose to not donate at all because you think your donation wouldn’t make any difference? In my experience, for many FOSS project standards, any contribution that can buy even a day of developer time would be considered huge. I’m sure KiCad would welcome any amount of donation :).