BlueHackers is simply an initiative or movement, and we were adopted as a special interest group of the OSDClub Inc. which was an Australian registered non-profit organisation (most well-known for the Open Source Developers’ Conference). We are in the process of shifting over to being a sub-committee of Linux Australia.

Initial costs (such as for the domain name) have been covered by Arjen. Some funds were gathered through donations given around Linux.conf.au (Hobart Tasmania, January 2009) when handing out the first laptop stickers, this was used to recoup the sticker printing costs and some excess remained. We printed a huge new batch of stickers in April 2010.

We’ve organised to have a counsellor or psychologist available for free sessions at some OSDC and Linux.conf.au events, and we’re working to make that a regular thing.  For LCA2020 we arranged a free psychologist service; while the costs of this were guaranteed covered by Linux Australia (psychologist) and the LCA2020 organisers (room), we also enabled a crowd-funding campaign via MyCause (now closed) as many in the community feel strongly about personally giving something back.

When we’re a proper sub-committee of LA (shouldn’t be more than a few months) we’ll once again have the ability to accept donations.