Many of the services provided by the Symbiota Support Hub (SSH) have been federally funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and the iDigBio Sustaining Phase 3 award. SSH funding provided by the NSF iDigBio award ends after August 2026, threatening the sustainability of many Symbiota portals currently supported at a low or no cost to their communities.
Who can donate to the Symbiota Support Hub (SSH)?
Anyone is welcome to donate! We particularly encourage anyone who benefits from SSH-hosted Symbiota portals and related services–or even anyone who is passionate about biodiversity–to contribute.
Am I donating to my portal or to general Symbiota support?
Donations to the Symbiota Support Hub (SSH) directly support your portal by funding the essential personnel and server costs required to maintain it. Because SSH infrastructure is shared, your donation also benefits other SSH-hosted community portals, supporting underfunded collections worldwide.
What will the funds be used for?
All funds raised will be used to sustain the services that the Symbiota Support Hub provides to your portal community. These services include:
- Providing Help Desk support to curators, collection staff, volunteers, and other users
- Keeping software up-to-date by installing regular code upgrades, including bug fixes, security enhancements, and new features
- Portal maintenance, such as routine data/portal backups, server maintenance, and cybersecurity monitoring and administration
- Help and training documentation at Symbiota Docs (https://docs.symbiota.org), the comprehensive Symbiota user site
- Media hosting services at affordable rates, often at no cost to small collections
- New collections onboarding, facilitating access to an affordable, low-barrier to entry browser-based collections management system with robust support for data management and publication
Can my donation go toward a specific service or development request for my portal?
If you would like your funds to be used for a specific service or development purpose, the Symbiota team maintains fee-for-service rates through a KU Symbiota service center: https://biodiversity.ku.edu/products-services. To request a quote or invoice for a fee-for-service request, please contact help@symbiota.org.
Who controls the funds?
Because the Symbiota Support Hub (SSH) team is employed through the University of Kansas (KU), donations are processed through the KU Endowment secure online portal. These funds are made directly available to the Symbiota team via an account set up with the KU Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum.
How is spending determined?
All funds donated to the Symbiota Support Hub will be used to sustain the services described above (Question 3), such as Help Desk support and related cyberinfrastructure maintenance.
Are donations to the Symbiota Support Hub tax-deductible?
Yes, donations made to the Symbiota Support Hub via the KU Endowment are tax-deductible. KU will send donors a receipt following payment.
How will we acknowledge your support?
If you are comfortable with public acknowledgement of your donation (as designated at the time of payment by completing this form), the Symbiota Support Hub (SSH) may include your name on its website (symbiota.org) and/or on SSH-hosted portal(s) as applicable.
What else is the Symbiota Support Hub doing to sustain the services it provides?
In addition to continuing to accept donations, the Symbiota Support Hub (SSH) is seeking funding through research awards, fee-for-service contracts, and professional societies. In late 2026, the SSH will gradually implement an optional membership model for data providers, e.g. for portal and image hosting. SSH’s sustainability planning statement can be found here.
