There's plenty of people working the same job for many years with low-ish salary? Sure they could find new one and get the latest high market but they haven't

I mean the project was already being developed before even having full time staff, and some contributors are not in the US and could live less for sure

many OSS projects can go a long way the same way

and that's the point, why should babel take "a big chunk" of OSS donations, while many others take nothing

and looking at another comment below, seems it's becoming irrelevant, so it would make sense to reduce funding further and let staff to move away to other projects or take full time employment at a profit making organization and take market rates.