Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've wondered about this for a long time - can't a 501(c)3 non-profit hire open-source developers as employees, or easier, employ or fund them as contractors and pay them through a 1099? I'm sure that non-profits hire for-profit companies or contract out work in some way, wouldn't that model apply to supporting open source projects through a non-profit?
It might be hard to justify the need for that software -- I don't think 501(c)3 orgs can do literally anything they want and keep their 501(c)3 status. The things they fund have to go towards a specific mission, and "putting more OSS into the world" might not be a valid mission (?).
The LF has plenty of employees who help code on their various sub-foundations in one way or another. Python, NumFocus, PHP, and some others have grant programs to help pay developers to work on specific code. And Conservancy and SPI are fiscal hosts that allow their independent projects to fundraise and pay for their own work.
On the other hand, the ASF explicitly does not allow funding to pay for project development, at least not in the context of the ASF itself. The ASF does have a paid infra staff/contractors who do write code, but it's all to run infra, not for project releases.
As noted elsethread, it's all about what the charity was setup to do.