It's true that their funding model is imperfect, but then other funding models are imperfect in different ways, and their model should be perfectly workable: sp

It's true that their funding model is imperfect, but then other funding models are imperfect in different ways, and their model should be perfectly workable: spend six months of the year working on contract jobs and the other six months making general improvements to the code. The reason it's not working is that their rates are far too low. This is, for whatever reason, a classic mistake of technical people. If you're turning down work for lack of time, you need to increase your rates until this stops happening.