The Kamusi Project creates dictionaries, terminology glossaries, and learning tools for African languages based on two principles:

1. All of our resources are produced or reviewed by experts.
2. All of our resources are made available to the public for free.

Producing our data is expensive, because our partners need to be compensated for their time. Distributing our data is also expensive, especially the cost of keeping our programming up-to-date with emerging technologies and new developments. Computer equipment and software, servers to handle millions of queries a month, training of partners in the use of our system, communications – all of these things are essential for the project to maintain and expand its resources. And yet, we give away everything we produce, to anyone, for free.

We have implemented a number of methods of generating income:

• Advertisements on the website through Google AdWords
• Sale of merchandise with the Kamusi logo through CafePress
• Affiliate program book sales through Amazon
• Membership subscriptions
• Donations from users

Together, these efforts generate enough to keep the servers running, but no more. Because the project does not earn revenue from what it produces, the business model depends on support for the production work itself. We have a clear sense of the costs involved in creating entries for a dictionary or a technical glossary. Most of these are one-time expenses. For example, creating 10,000 dictionary entries for the most common words in a particular language costs approximately $40,000:

(Sample project timeline above)

Once we have the data in the system – that is, a permanent resource for a language, available to the public for free – ongoing expenses for disseminating and updating that data are low. The challenge, from a business perspective, is finding parties interested in funding the various components that constitute the Kamusi Project vision.

A combination of four types of support can sustain the project:

1. Revenue from the general public, as indicated above, should provide the baseline funding to keep the lights on. As the project's resources expand, so will the user base – as will, we hope, the ability of the project to attract members and other ongoing forms of community support.
2. Grants from agencies that fund academic and development activities are highly appropriate for much of the work of the Kamusi Project. We partner with leading scholars and specialists throughout and beyond Africa to produce high-quality lexicons suitable for academic peer review. The drawback of this funding mechanism is that research grants for African languages are scarce, so years can pass between the start of planning and the availability of funding.
3. Organizations and companies with specific interests can support the development of technical glossaries for their particular domains, within the KamusiTERMS initiative. For example, a health organization focused on ophthalmological treatment could finance an eye-care glossary that would improve communications between patients and medical staff while an airline with destinations around Africa could sponsor an aviation glossary that would ensure that local maintenance crews with different linguistic backgrounds all follow the same installation procedure for the same part. Although few organizations have the capacity to produce their own glossaries, taking advantage of the Kamusi Project's systems and networks to navigate Africa's complicated linguistic environment is a low-cost way to build a resource that will be of immediate and continuing use in many specialized fields.
4. Foundations and other charitable entities can fund particular components, such as a dictionary for the language of a certain region, or provide general support that the Kamusi Project can allocate to emerging needs.

By seeking funding partners who can recognize the value of what we create, and invest in its realization, the Kamusi Project can cover the costs of the necessary work as we move steadily toward the goal of providing the public with every word in Africa, for free.