I believe you are right. There is nothing standing in the way of beginning with picking goals that can be achieved piecemeal and building upon that.
So, the question is what projects?
Off the top of my head, difficult ones first 
- (thinking of @orangecat and the research oriented, institutional context): dbus interaction between sailjailed apps (or generally, firejailed). This is really tricky terrain which currently creates a lot (perceived by me) friction. We’re in a position where jolla, rightly, has introduced mechanisms to sanbox apps, which we want, thereby rendering them less useful because they can no longer communicate. We need a mechanism to expose permissions for dbus interaction between apps.
- Individuals like @karry currently host, for instance, tile servers on personal hardware and link. Is there a collective effort we could ‘attach’ to? Is this a ‘project’ that can sustainably be financed as you suggest? It’s more infra, and I think less likely to qualify.
- A ‘clearing house’ to bundle the capital of many small projects to pay license fees (still in the mapbox/tile provider domain). I can’t see getting this funded without an org. But the utility to FOSS projects (in the sense of minimal viable) is undeniable. The main issue is to keep api endpoints open without forcing every user into a license agreement and also not burden the developer with undue pain.
- In that vein, patchmanager web catalog. If I remember correctly is a python (django) application. I asked myself, can this be done with ‘less’. Probably. Has the same problems as the tileserver idea in 2.
- @Basil could probably benefit from funding for openrepos?
- XMPP omemo encryption and modern ‘views’ for SFOS (xmpp can do anything that signal can) and/OR
- OS level integration for Matrix. I have to admit I’m old school and don’t like the matrix protocol. But, it’s the way the wind is blowing. Also might be a ‘research org’ @orangecat like project.
- Basic improvements to the Calendar stack. ie. search @dcaliste may have a more concrete suggestion of a milestone on his list that could use some funding?
- Extending the developer documentation so that, for instance, https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/qprocess-and-sailjail , development is not so ‘piecemeal’ and painful. maybe an @orangecat research oriented project. There is ‘more than skeletal’ documentation, but in parts, you need x-ray specks to read between the lines.
- Probably should be prio. #1 Get the browser to 100. cough.
- All my personal goals So, performant media tools for basic and not so basic image/audio/video production. I’m not sure where to start here, and I’m not looking for funding. I’m too tired to think
Ah, the list is endless. I suppose we need a poll with shorter ‘goal’ statements.
As for my time, as of January, I’m likely full time FOSS project guy for at least 5-6 months.