Although created by a volunteers throughout the world, Debian has expenses that were, for a long time, paid for out of the pockets of a few of the developers. These expenses include registering the debian.org domain, cutting CD's for testing new releases, unreimbursed travel and lodging expenses while appearing at conferences, etc.

Many of the donations to date have been from appreciative users. Linux System Labs Australia is committed to make sure that every single donations made to Debian are delivered to the Debian project.