It looks like an organization called "g10code GmbH" is in charge of funding development, not "some rando", and indeed it seems like they're willing to enter in to contracts with companies for development of specific features that company might need[1].
I don't know how the tax situation for donations works out for a GmbH, but they seem to be in a similar position as several other open source projects.
Various parties fund Tor development by giving money to "The Tor Project, Inc.", a 501(c)(3) corporation[2].
The same is true of Freenet, "The Freenet Project Inc", another 501(c)(3) is in charge of funding development, and Google itself has been among the entities that have donated[3].
I don't know how the tax situation for donations works out for a GmbH, but they seem to be in a similar position as several other open source projects.
Various parties fund Tor development by giving money to "The Tor Project, Inc.", a 501(c)(3) corporation[2].
The same is true of Freenet, "The Freenet Project Inc", another 501(c)(3) is in charge of funding development, and Google itself has been among the entities that have donated[3].
[1] https://gnupg.org/donate/index.html
[2] https://www.torproject.org/about/findoc/2013-TorProject-Form...
[3] https://freenetproject.org/sponsors.html