I feel a lot of people would contribute financially to open source projects if they could associate more of their time and energy with the project, by having a human connect.

For example, I would like to pay an open source contributor or donate to the project itself, if they are able to walk me through the code base, help me build knowledge by pointing me to the right docs, mentor me through good first bugs, etc.

I would rather contribute code AND money (rather than just one of them), if I was able to get hold of an existing contributor's time and energy.

Is this something that makes sense? What hurdles do you see in this approach? Will it appear offensive to the maintainers? What if the outcome benefits more than one person, like better documentation for everyone?

Note: I was a GSoC 2011 student and I actually want to give back to the community. But I tend to jump between different, complex projects and I feel that having a guaranteed human connection will keep me motivated to contribute.