I work on a project depended upon and repeatedly promoted by Snowden (tweets) and less-than-public-figures-who-lives-depend-on-it (pastebins).

We gave up writing grant proposals. After repeatedly pouring hours into crafting proposals exactly as specified, the big one (no plural) OTF (.gov funding) has never responded. The smaller, more informal ones aren't interested as well (no clue why).

What little OTF money there is goes to the same projects, written by the same grant writers. We're told by insiders that we need connections, need to hire those writers, and we're told we need a sexier story.

We can't fund a modest income for the lead developer (approaching nearly a decade). He lives cheaply in a developing country off anonymous donations of unpredictable amount and timing.

Tor has resources we couldn't dream of, and if they're cutting staff, there's no hope for any open source security project.