I also asked among the contributors if you should accept any form of money or NLnet funding or anything in that regard. Our common conclusion was: NO. Because we are doing it for fun, asking money will only create a situation were you might even feel more obligated.
In regards to NLNet, you should know how it works. NLNet doesn’t give you money upfront and then expect stuff. You decide on a list of tasks to do and then complete them on our own time and get paid for each you complete. This reduces the pressure, as you can choose to handle these tasks as frequent as you want.
Then again. with NLNet getting defunded by EU, it’s likely most new can’t receive funding anymore.
Recently, a very dedicated contributor did left Mbin sadly without any announcement. This person is still being missed to this day
Man, I know the exact feeling. We had a similar case in our FOSS project of a valuable contributor going suddenly MIA, even blocking us out of pypi in the process. It hurts.
counterpoint: If developers aren’t forced to “eat their own dogfood” it becomes difficult to see some issues and know what to prioritize.