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Open Collective Official Statement – OCF Dissolution

blog.opencollective.com

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Re: Open Collective Official Statement – OCF Dissolution

#31

Post by Forgeties79 »

zachlatta wrote: post #28
simonw wrote: post #16

This is going to be a huge pain for the 600 groups that this affects (few of which are open source projects - this is NOT the part of Open Collective that handles open source). The key thing to understand here is what a "fiscal sponsor" is in the US charitable world. If you want to accept charitable donations from people in the US you really need special tax status with the IRS. This involves a lot of bureaucracy and…

Hi - I'm the executive director of Hack Club ( https://hackclub.com ). We are a nonprofit that helps tens of thousands of teenagers learn to code each year, and in 2018 we launched an in-house fiscal sponsorship program called Hack Club Bank ( https://hackclub.com/hcb/ ), originally for our students. Our sponsorship program has expanded and we now serve organizations of all mission types, including software, climate,…

Just sent this comment to beehaw (fediverse instance). Open collective shuttering has them scrambling. Appreciate your willingness to help folks out with this!

Re: Open Collective Official Statement – OCF Dissolution

#32

Post by PenguinCoder »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #31
zachlatta wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi - I'm the executive director of Hack Club ( https://hackclub.com ). We are a nonprofit that helps tens of thousands of teenagers learn to code each year, and in 2018 we launched an in-house fiscal sponsorship program called Hack Club Bank ( https://hackclub.com/hcb/ ), originally for our students. Our sponsorship program has expanded and we now serve organizations of all mission types, including software, climate,…

Just sent this comment to beehaw (fediverse instance). Open collective shuttering has them scrambling. Appreciate your willingness to help folks out with this!

Thanks for the headsup @BolexNOLA. Penguincoder here (of Beehaw) and we are tracking on this outreach. We definitely want to go with another well known and trustworthy fiscal host. Not sure that a Rails UX matters in this context but certainly nicer than some other banking front-ends...

Re: Open Collective Official Statement – OCF Dissolution

#33

Post by pbronez »

JamesCoyne wrote: post #17

Given this news, it's interesting to read the "Investor Update" published by Open Collective earlier this month: https://blog.opencollective.com/open-collective-inc-investor... Open Collective will (presumably) experience a further drop in revenue as they lose the "platform fee" they collected from OCF

Key quote:

“”” over the last three years, the source of funds on the platform shifted majorly from small donations to added funds. A mechanism that was originally an unplanned “add-on” became the main source of our revenue, shifting our incentives and, slowly, our strategy, in a way that we did not plan for, and I failed to predict. As a result of this movement to direct-to-hosts large grants and funds (with their increased compliance and opex); the cost to hosting collectives while equally sharing the fee on the transaction became untenable for the fiscal hosts. “””

Re: Open Collective Official Statement – OCF Dissolution

#34

Post by ametrau »

zachlatta wrote: post #28
simonw wrote: post #16

This is going to be a huge pain for the 600 groups that this affects (few of which are open source projects - this is NOT the part of Open Collective that handles open source). The key thing to understand here is what a "fiscal sponsor" is in the US charitable world. If you want to accept charitable donations from people in the US you really need special tax status with the IRS. This involves a lot of bureaucracy and…

Hi - I'm the executive director of Hack Club ( https://hackclub.com ). We are a nonprofit that helps tens of thousands of teenagers learn to code each year, and in 2018 we launched an in-house fiscal sponsorship program called Hack Club Bank ( https://hackclub.com/hcb/ ), originally for our students. Our sponsorship program has expanded and we now serve organizations of all mission types, including software, climate,…

> donations from funders including Ford Foundation, Gates Foundation,

You know the projects “hack club” sponsor are going to be a particular “type”, and probably very weird and wasteful.

Re: Open Collective Official Statement – OCF Dissolution

#35

Post by vikramkr »

So OCI inc, the for profit, creates OCF, the nonprofit. The nonprofit isn't viable because the "business model is not sustainable with the number of complex services we have offered and the fees we pay to the Open Collective Inc. tech platform." And then this blog post on OCIs page regarding OCF's decision to shut down indicates the announcement "came as a surprise to us."

What's going on here? The google doc with the foundation's announcement (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1odj1zfwqZgIyGOeBhv5QZxYH...) puts the blame on OCI's fees but OCI claims "The exact specifics of OCF’s decision to dissolve are not known to us. We have to trust that OCF had a good reason to do this." It sounds like OCI was making revenue off this nonprofit that they started by charging them an unsustainable rate and then is trying to not confront that directly in their statement. 600 groups affected by this dealing with implications with the IRS and tax paperwork - this is not a confidence inducing post from OCI or OCF

Re: Open Collective Official Statement – OCF Dissolution

#36

Post by dzink »

zachlatta wrote: post #28
simonw wrote: post #16

This is going to be a huge pain for the 600 groups that this affects (few of which are open source projects - this is NOT the part of Open Collective that handles open source). The key thing to understand here is what a "fiscal sponsor" is in the US charitable world. If you want to accept charitable donations from people in the US you really need special tax status with the IRS. This involves a lot of bureaucracy and…

Hi - I'm the executive director of Hack Club ( https://hackclub.com ). We are a nonprofit that helps tens of thousands of teenagers learn to code each year, and in 2018 we launched an in-house fiscal sponsorship program called Hack Club Bank ( https://hackclub.com/hcb/ ), originally for our students. Our sponsorship program has expanded and we now serve organizations of all mission types, including software, climate,…

Ask them to add you to this list they mention in the announcement: https://airtable.com/appQVOmXysA863DDc/shrdjThde0Xteoabu/tbl...

Re: Open Collective Official Statement – OCF Dissolution

#37

Post by thayne »

simonw wrote: post #16

This is going to be a huge pain for the 600 groups that this affects (few of which are open source projects - this is NOT the part of Open Collective that handles open source). The key thing to understand here is what a "fiscal sponsor" is in the US charitable world. If you want to accept charitable donations from people in the US you really need special tax status with the IRS. This involves a lot of bureaucracy and…

> This involves a lot of bureaucracy and paperwork.

And depending on the state, you may need a board of directors. Which is a huge pain for really small projects. Like say one or two developers.

Re: Open Collective Official Statement – OCF Dissolution

#38

Post by kseton99 »

ShaneCurcuru wrote: post #18
simonw wrote: post #16

This is going to be a huge pain for the 600 groups that this affects (few of which are open source projects - this is NOT the part of Open Collective that handles open source). The key thing to understand here is what a "fiscal sponsor" is in the US charitable world. If you want to accept charitable donations from people in the US you really need special tax status with the IRS. This involves a lot of bureaucracy and…

I have a general explainer about the OCF shutdown (not the OC, or OSC, or OSE, or OSNV!) over here, where I include more links to software foundations that might also act as fiscal hosts, like Conservancy, SPI, or NumFocus. https://communityovercode.com/2024/02/open-collective-founda... What we really need is a lawyer/accountant/tax person to write a focused guide for collectives and how to move their money. US tax l…

Hi guys, my law firm Seton & Associates originally assisted in establishing this 501c3 fiscal sponsor Open Collective Foundation many years ago. I have been a law practitioner in the space of advising charitable structures for 25 years. We know the ins & outs of the world of fiscal sponsorship. In addition, I am the CEO, Founder & Chairman of the Edward Charles Foundation which is a 501c3 fiscal sponsor. We are registered in all 41 jurisdictions requiring such registration and also are audited each year by an independent CPA Firm. We can help. We also have relationships with many fiscal sponsors to refer you if we are not the right fit. Feel free to email at kseton@sblservices.com and I will respond promptly.

Re: Open Collective Official Statement – OCF Dissolution

#39

Post by MaxLeiter »

zachlatta wrote: post #28
simonw wrote: post #16

This is going to be a huge pain for the 600 groups that this affects (few of which are open source projects - this is NOT the part of Open Collective that handles open source). The key thing to understand here is what a "fiscal sponsor" is in the US charitable world. If you want to accept charitable donations from people in the US you really need special tax status with the IRS. This involves a lot of bureaucracy and…

Hi - I'm the executive director of Hack Club ( https://hackclub.com ). We are a nonprofit that helps tens of thousands of teenagers learn to code each year, and in 2018 we launched an in-house fiscal sponsorship program called Hack Club Bank ( https://hackclub.com/hcb/ ), originally for our students. Our sponsorship program has expanded and we now serve organizations of all mission types, including software, climate,…

Hack Club Bank was awesome back when I was helping organize HackSC. Thanks for the software!

Re: Open Collective Official Statement – OCF Dissolution

#40

Post by albert180 »

ametrau wrote: post #34
zachlatta wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi - I'm the executive director of Hack Club ( https://hackclub.com ). We are a nonprofit that helps tens of thousands of teenagers learn to code each year, and in 2018 we launched an in-house fiscal sponsorship program called Hack Club Bank ( https://hackclub.com/hcb/ ), originally for our students. Our sponsorship program has expanded and we now serve organizations of all mission types, including software, climate,…

> donations from funders including Ford Foundation, Gates Foundation, You know the projects “hack club” sponsor are going to be a particular “type”, and probably very weird and wasteful.

Could you explain it, instead of making weird implications, that only some insiders will understand?
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