IETF | IETF Endowment

The IETF works on a broad range of networking technologies that provide the foundation for the Internet's growth and evolution.
While most IETF work takes place online, meetings and other events such as Hackathons provide in-person opportunities to advance work within the IETF.
The IETF is the premier Internet standards organization. It follows open and well-documented processes for setting these standards. Once published, those standards are made freely available.
The global IETF community works together in many different ways to produce high quality, relevant technical documents that influence the way people design, use, and manage the Internet.
By supporting the IETF today, you are ensuring a free and open Internet exists tomorrow.
The IETF Endowment is a designated investment fund created in support of IETF and its activities, and intended to ensure the long-term sustainability of the IETF.
The IETF Endowment is a designated investment fund created in support of the Internet Engineering Task Force and its activities, intended to ensure the long-term sustainability of the IETF. It is governed by an IETF Endowment Policy, which outlines the structure of the IETF Endowment, as well as the acceptance, withdrawal, and use of funds. The IETF Endowment investments are overseen by the IETF Administration LLC and managed by Goldman Sachs under the legal and financial standards of the state of Delaware in the United States. For additional information about the IETF Endowment, please contact the IETF Executive Director.
Be part of the IETF Endowment by offering your support through a donation online today.
Donations made directly through a charitable trust or DAFs must be made to the Internet Society on IETF’s behalf. We ask that you alert IETF if you intend to make such a gift, and include "IETF Endowment" in your gift designation. Relevant information needed might include:
Mailing Address: Internet SocietyATTN: IETF Endowment11710 Plaza America Drive #400, Reston, VA 20190
By supporting the IETF Endowment, you are championing the following:
The IETF is a global standards-setting organization, intentionally created without a membership structure so that anyone with the technical competency can participate in an individual capacity. This lack of membership ensures its position as the primary neutral standards body because participants cannot exert influence as they could in a pay-to-play organization where members, companies, or governments pay fees to set the direction. IETF standards are reached by rough consensus, allowing the ideas with the strongest technical merit to rise to the surface.
Further, these standards that advance technology, increase security, and further connect individuals on a global scale are freely available, ensuring small-to-midsize companies and entrepreneurs anywhere in the world are on equal footing with the large technology companies.
With a community from around the world, and an increased focus on diversity in all its forms, IETF seeks to ensure that the global Internet has input from the global community, and represents the realities of all who use it.
The IETF has been around as long as the modern Internet, and much of the way we use the Internet today is predicated upon the standards developed in the IETF. Web conferencing, email, calendaring, online security, and the rapid transfer of data are all possible in large part due to standards developed by IETF participants, and then implemented by companies around the world.
As the Internet continues to evolve, so does the work of IETF. Our participants are continually updating existing protocols and anticipating emerging needs, while creating building blocks for the infrastructure needed for what lies ahead. The IETF attracts diverse and deep expertise from industry, academia, engineering, and civil society to anticipate what’s needed and respond. No single company or government brings the depth and breadth of knowledge to their work as the IETF community.
A gift to the IETF Endowment ensures that nearly 10,000 RFCs created over the last 35 years will remain freely available for reference in perpetuity via the RFC archive. The IETF Endowment will help ensure that whatever the future of the RFC Series that documents the technical building blocks of the Internet as we currently understand it, the records and technical expertise that the Internet is predicated upon remain resources for whoever and whatever comes next.
At present, the majority of IETF funding comes from a single source, the Internet Society (ISOC). Direct funding from IETF participants is mostly limited to IETF meetings in the form of sponsorships and registration fees.
In 2018, the IETF moved the legal and administrative home of the IETF away from ISOC and to the IETF Administration LLC. While this LLC is still legally owned by ISOC, it is not controlled by ISOC and operates entirely independently. This change reflects this growing maturity of the IETF as an organization.
The next step in this growing maturity is to secure the long term stability and financial independence of the IETF. While IETF remains incredibly appreciative of the generous support of ISOC, the IETF LLC seeks to diversify our funding sources to ensure financial independence and thus shield itself from the single point of failure that is relying on any single funding source, including ISOC. The IETF Endowment is the primary vehicle by which the IETF hopes to build those resources which will allow this work to continue as long as needed.
Now is a great time to donate to the IETF Endowment, as the Internet Society (ISOC) has made a matching pledge with a 2-for-1 match on the first $12 million raised and a 1-for-1 match on the next $6 million, which could see us raise an additional $30 million for the IETF Endowment. Act before the match expires and your gift will have double the impact!
For contributions of US$1,000,000+
For contributions of US$100,000 - US$999,999
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