Most developers don’t work for software companies. So when you are not shipping software as a product you and your department are usually a liability. This is important to understand because it helps you frame your approach to upper management as a developer or c-suite as a director of engineering when it comes to talk about budgets. In my experience, most non tech corporations will be ok with allocating budget for open source projects, they already do it in other types of non profit domains. But you need to make a case that goes beyond the ethical reasons or personal motivations.